EF2 tornado, Abbottsburg, North Carolina, March 28, 2009

1. EF065 to 85 mph

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

2. EF186 to 110 mph

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

3. EF2111 to 135 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.

4. EF3136 to 165 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

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

6. EF5over 200 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

EF2

Date

March 28, 2009

Touchdown

9:08 PM EDT (01:08 UTC)

Lifted

9:12 PM EDT (01:12 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

1.6 miles (2.6 km)

Path width

40 yards (37 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$200,000

County

Bladen County

Touchdown point

34.541, -78.673

Lift-off point

34.559, -78.656

Record number

0903281908-01

A mesoscale convective vortex moved to the northeast and across the area during the evening. Deep moisture and higher dewpoints were aligned ahead of a pre-frontal trough and surface low pressure in eastern South Carolina.

A National Weather Service Storm Survey confirmed an EF-2 Tornado with winds up to 115 mph about 4 miles north of Clarkton, North Carolina. The tornado first touched down at a farm along N Mitchell Ford Road. It flipped a silo and damaged a storage building that collapsed onto farm equipment. As the tornado moved north-northeast, just west of N Mitchell Ford Road, it caused minor damage to a house and shed and downed four trees. The tornado emerged from the woods near a house causing minor roof damage, then intensified from an EF-0 Tornado to an EF-2 Tornado as it impacted a house along Twisted Hickory Road. The tornado completely destroyed a cinder-block storage and farm building and sent cinder-blocks into the nearby house, causing considerable damage to the walls and roof. The back of the house lifted off the foundation causing it to buckle. The roof over the porch was completely gone. Debris from this location, which included among many other items, a washing machine, lawn mower and couch was found four hundred yards away from the house. The family took shelter under a stairway and was not harmed. The tornado continued to impact properties on the east side of Twisted Hickory Road and caused minor roof damage to three other homes and knocked down a couple dozen trees. The tornado weakened as it moved north-northeast toward Britt Road, just east of the intersection of Britt Road and Twisted Hickory Road. The tornado lifted just north of Britt Road as it moved toward a swampy area.

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 21:38 UTC and running to 04:00 UTC.

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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:59 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 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.

Elizabethtown/Curtis_brown_field (EYF), 10 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Wilmington radar (KLTX), 66 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:08 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2009 tornado in North CarolinaEvery tornado in North Carolina since 1950Warnings in force in North Carolina nowThe forecast where you are

13 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.