Tornadoes · United States · North Carolina · 1998
F2 tornado, Bahama, North Carolina, March 20, 1998
This F2 tornado ran 2.5 miles across Durham County on March 20, 1998, touching down at 6:30 PM EST and reaching 100 yards wide. It killed nobody and injured 1, and did $600,000 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
- March 20, 1998
- Touchdown
- 6:30 PM EST (23:30 UTC)
- Path length
- 2.5 miles (4.0 km)
- Path width
- 100 yards (91 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 1
- Property damage
- $600,000
- County
- Durham County
- Touchdown point
- 36.220, -78.820
- Lift-off point
- 36.250, -78.780
- Record number
- 167
What the Weather Service recorded
A tornado first touched down in rural northeast Durham county off Bahama Road. The tornado moved northeast and took the roof off a manufactured home on a brick foundation. One minor injury occurred in the home. Down the road a half mile on Range Road, the tornado damaged farm sheds and sent sheets of tin flying in all directions. The tornado then hit a frame house with only minor roof damage. A large oak tree, without leaves, was snapped off at the base. Just 100 yards away, the tornado hit a manufactured home and reduced it to just splinters and rubble. The tornado picked up the home, turned it 90 degrees, and slammed it into the ground. The entire structure was then sheared off at the base and spread into the adjacent field and woods. Thankfully, no one was home at the time. This tornado reached its maximum intensity (F2) at this point. Minor damage occurred down the road to some businesses and houses and the storm lifted before reaching the Person county line.Home damage was estimated by Emergency Management to be nearly $450K and damage to businesses was nearly $150K.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
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.
Greensboro/Hi Pt, NC (KGSO), 00:00Z
0.5 hours after it, 100 km from the path. March 21, 1998.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 486 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -41 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 249 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 840 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 64 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 25 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 82 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 123 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.2
- Supercell composite
- 1.2
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.5 K/km
The surface observations
Raleigh / Durham (RDU), 38 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:00 UTC |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 1998 tornado in North CarolinaEvery tornado in North Carolina since 1950Warnings in force in North Carolina nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of March 20, 1998
11 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 20 | 6:25 AM EST | F3 | Hall, GA | 4.0 | 100 | 12 | 171 | $20 million |
| March 20 | 2:42 PM EST | F0 | Mecklenburg, NC | 0.1 | 30 | |||
| March 20 | 3:14 PM EST | F1 | Stokes, NC | 1.5 | 30 | 3 | $100,000 | |
| March 20 | 3:25 PM EST | F3 | Rockingham, NC | 12.0 | 300 | 2 | 27 | $34 million |
| March 20 | 3:56 PM EST | F1 | Henry, VA | 13.0 | 150 | $1.0 million | ||
| March 20 | 6:15 PM EST | F0 | Wake, NC | 0.1 | 30 | |||
| March 20 | 6:40 PM EST | F2 | Wake, NC | 1.5 | 100 | 2 | $650,000 | |
| March 20 | 6:45 PM EST | F0 | Wake, NC | 0.2 | 30 | $10,000 | ||
| March 20 | 6:55 PM EST | F2 | Granville, NC | 1.5 | 100 | $100,000 | ||
| March 20 | 7:35 PM EST | F1 | Franklin, NC | 0.1 | 50 | $50,000 | ||
| March 20 | 8:45 PM EST | F1 | Robeson, NC | 0.5 | 30 | 1 | $20,000 |
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.