Tornadoes · United States · North Carolina · 1996
F2 tornado, Magnolia to Kenansville, North Carolina, April 15, 1996
From Magnolia to Kenansville, this F2 tornado ran 1.5 miles across Duplin County on April 15, 1996, touching down at 3:30 PM EDT and reaching 75 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $450,000 of property damage.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
F040 to 72 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
F2113 to 157 mphthis tornado
Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.
F3158 to 206 mph
Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
F5261 to 318 mph
Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.
Unrated
The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.
The record
- Rating
- F2
- Date
- April 15, 1996
- Touchdown
- 3:30 PM EDT (19:30 UTC)
- Path length
- 1.5 miles (2.4 km)
- Path width
- 75 yards (69 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $450,000
- County
- Duplin County
- Touchdown point
- 34.900, -77.950
- Lift-off point
- 34.900, -77.950
- Record number
- 1010
What the Weather Service recorded
A tornado touched down 3 miles south of Magnolia on Highway 117 destroying 2 vacant hog houses. Debris was lifted 200 feet in the air. Eyewitnesses reported a multiple vortices tornado.
Eyewitnesses saw a tornado as it destroyed 3 hog houses on NC11 south of Kenansville. Travelled NE downing trees which blocked the highway and struck another hog farm about a mile away destroying 4 hog buildings.
Tornado on Williamson Road ripped the roof off one trailer and totally destroyed another trailer. Three people were slightly injured.
Three turkey barns totally destroyed and the roof of a vacant house was partially blown off on NC50. Thousands of baby turkeys were killed.
Brief touchdown on Paul Ed Dail Road destroyed the roofs on 2 homes and damaged a third.
Tornado destroyed 2 hog houses and damaged a third along Highway 903.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19:24 UTC | 20:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | MHX |
| 19:33 UTC | 20:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | MHX |
| 20:03 UTC | 20:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | MHX |
Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.
The forecast that day
The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Moderate Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:59 UTC.
SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.
The air that afternoon
The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.
Newport, NC (KMHX), 12:00Z
7.5 hours before the tornado, 99 km from the path. April 15, 1996.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -71888 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1001 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 23 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 17 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 82 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 60 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 1.9 K/km
Newport, NC (KMHX), 00:00Z
4.5 hours after it, 99 km from the path. April 16, 1996.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 46 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -113 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 184 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1108 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 31 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 20 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 157 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 209 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.1
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.4 K/km
The surface observations
Jacksonville_(Awos) (OAJ), 32 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18:00 UTC | 72 | 61 | 160° 16 kt | 26 | 1014.2 | |
| 19:00 UTC | 72.86 | 61.88 | 150° 13 kt | 23 | 1013.5 | |
| 20:00 UTC | 70.88 | 63 | 160° 12 kt | 19 | 1012.2 | |
| 21:00 UTC | 70 | 63 | 150° 13 kt | 20 | 1011.5 |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 1996 tornado in North CarolinaEvery tornado in North Carolina since 1950Warnings in force in North Carolina nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of April 15, 1996
17 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 15 | 11:20 AM EDT | F0 | Pender, NC | 0.2 | 20 | |||
| April 15 | 11:50 AM EDT | F0 | Pender, NC | 0.1 | 10 | |||
| April 15 | 3:25 PM EDT | F1 | Duplin, NC | 0.3 | 50 | $30,000 | ||
| April 15 | 3:33 PM EDT | F2 | Duplin, NC | 1.0 | 75 | 3 | $70,000 | |
| April 15 | 3:35 PM EDT | F2 | Duplin, NC | 0.8 | 75 | $200,000 | ||
| April 15 | 3:40 PM EDT | F1 | Duplin, NC | 0.5 | 50 | $70,000 | ||
| April 15 | 3:48 PM EDT | F2 | Duplin, NC | 1.0 | 75 | |||
| April 15 | 4:20 PM EDT | F0 | Lenoir, NC | 0.3 | 25 | |||
| April 15 | 4:32 PM EDT | F0 | Lenoir, NC | 0.3 | 50 | |||
| April 15 | 4:35 PM EDT | F1 | Lenoir, NC | 0.5 | 50 | $200,000 | ||
| April 15 | 4:45 PM EDT | F0 | Lenoir, NC | 0.5 | 50 | |||
| April 15 | 5:00 PM EDT | F2 | Greene, NC | 1.3 | 75 | $150,000 | ||
| April 15 | 5:10 PM EDT | F1 | Pitt, NC | 0.7 | 50 | $50,000 | ||
| April 15 | 6:08 PM EDT | F0 | Wake, NC | 2.0 | 200 | $10,000 | ||
| April 15 | 6:25 PM EDT | F1 | Wake, NC | 3.0 | 50 | 26 | $3.0 million | |
| April 15 | 6:45 PM EDT | F2 | Franklin, NC | 2.0 | 400 | 5 | $1.0 million | |
| April 15 | 6:45 PM EDT | F1 | Nash, NC | 4.0 | 50 | $50,000 |
What this means
Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.