Tornadoes · United States · North Carolina · 2001

F0 tornado, Maple Hill, North Carolina, April 1, 2001

This F0 tornado ran 0.3 miles across Pender County on April 1, 2001, touching down at 3:15 PM EDT and reaching 100 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $100,000 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.

  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.

The record

Rating
F0
Date
April 1, 2001
Touchdown
3:15 PM EDT (19:15 UTC)
Path length
0.3 miles (0.5 km)
Path width
100 yards (91 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$100,000
County
Pender County
Touchdown point
34.500, -77.680
Lift-off point
34.500, -77.680
Record number
89

What the Weather Service recorded

NWS surveyed damage to a turkey farm in Maple Hill. One building sustained significant damage, with debris consisting of broken timbers, sheets of tin, and various feeding equipment, spread over an area that was approximately 100 yards wide and a quarter mile long.

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.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
17:17 UTC18:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningILM
18:10 UTC19:45 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningILM

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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 16:07 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

7.3 hours before the tornado, 80 km from the path. April 1, 2001.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Newport, NC at 12:00Z on 2001-04-01Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -55899, lifted condensation level 609 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Newport, NC at 12:00Z on 2001-04-01The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 62 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 54 knots.1939587897117136Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-55899 J/kg
Surface CAPE
9 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
609 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
54 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
15 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
62 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
140 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Newport, NC (KMHX), 00:00Z

4.7 hours after it, 80 km from the path. April 2, 2001.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Newport, NC at 00:00Z on 2001-04-02Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 11 joules per kilogram, CIN 0, lifted condensation level 531 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Newport, NC at 00:00Z on 2001-04-02The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 93 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 34 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
11 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
0 J/kg
Surface CAPE
85 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
531 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
34 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
24 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
93 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
80 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
6.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2001 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 1, 2001

1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
April 14:30 PM EDTF0Carteret, NC0.250

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.