F0 tornado, Leasburg, North Carolina, May 7, 1998

1. F040 to 72 mphthis tornado

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. F173 to 112 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. F2113 to 157 mph

   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.

4. 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.

5. F4207 to 260 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. 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.

7. 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.

Rating

F0

Date

May 7, 1998

Touchdown

4:35 PM EDT (20:35 UTC)

Path length

0.5 miles (0.8 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

2

Property damage

$200,000

County

Caswell County

Touchdown point

36.320, -79.270

Lift-off point

36.330, -79.250

Record number

1005

Thunderstorms during the afternoon and evening hours on the 7th produced two tornadoes, hail up to golf ball size, and damaging winds.A tornado formed seven and a half miles southwest of Leasburg at 1535 EST and traveled about one half mile northeast before dissipating at 1537 EST seven miles southwest of Leasburg. This tornado damaged several homes, two chicken houses, a mobile home, a carport, a business, and a rest home, knocked down trees, and injured two people.A tornado formed one mile east southeast of Level Cross at 1719 EST and traveled east northeastward about two and a half miles before dissipating three and a half miles east of Level Cross at 1725 EST. The tornado ripped shingles from a roof, blew houses off their foundation, damaged or destroyed numerous out buildings, broke out windows, and damaged trees and a mobile home and knocked down power lines. A house was damaged when two large trees fell on it.Thunderstorm winds knocked down numerous trees across the southern portion of Stokes County and two miles south-southeast of Providence, knocked down trees and power lines three miles south-southwest of Milton, broke off tree limbs in Jonesville, and destroyed a mobile home and damaged trees three and a half miles west-southwest of Wilkesboro.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

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.

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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 14:48 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 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.

Danville Regional (DAN), 28 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

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

42 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.