EF1 tornado, Emit to Middlesex, North Carolina, May 5, 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 mphthis tornado

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

3. EF2111 to 135 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. 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

EF1

Date

May 5, 2009

Touchdown

5:26 PM EDT (21:26 UTC)

Lifted

5:46 PM EDT (21:46 UTC)

On the ground

20 minutes

Path length

7.2 miles (11.5 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$200,000

Counties

Johnston and Nash counties

Touchdown point

35.675, -78.277

Lift-off point

35.743, -78.182

Record number

0905051526-01

Two tornadic supercells developed along a stalled warm front that extended across souther piedmont and coastal plain of North Carolina.|The cells produced 4 tornadoes in Johnston, Nash and Wilson counties.

An EF-1 tornado touched down initially just to the west of NC Highway 96 in a wooded area. The tornado cross NC Highway 96 and produced significant damage to several homes along and east of NC Highway 96. The homes sustained exterior and roof damage with uprooted or snapped tree damage consistent with EF-1 damage. |The tornado proceed to cross NC Highway 39. Several homes between Antioch Church Road and NC Highway 42 sustained damaged. The tornado continued to track east-northeast, causing roof shingle damage to the Antioch Fire Station and a nearby home. A mobile home near the fire department also sustained shingle and siding damage. The tornado then continued to track northeast across Barnes Lake Road and NC Highway 222, where it caused significant tree damage and some minor roof or shingle damage to surrounding homes or mobile homes. The tornado then |exited the county, crossing over into southwest Nash County.

The tornado tracked northeast through open field and woodland area where it produced significant tree damage. The tornado quickly lifted up after crossing Smith Road and Beaver Dam Road.

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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:04 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.

The Raleigh/Durham radar (KRAX), 24 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:27 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

7 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.