EF1 tornado, Ararat, North Carolina, April 4, 2011

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

April 4, 2011

Touchdown

1:25 AM EDT (05:25 UTC)

Lifted

1:28 AM EDT (05:28 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

2.7 miles (4.3 km)

Path width

250 yards (229 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$1.0 million

County

Surry County

Touchdown point

36.395, -80.572

Lift-off point

36.411, -80.528

Record number

1104042325-01

A strong upper level wave and cold front moved across the region on the night of the 4th into early on the 5th of April. A line of heavy showers and thunderstorms accompanied this front. This line intensified as it approached the blue ridge and entered into an area of higher instability. This intensification allowed for the very strong winds aloft to mix down to the surface as the line began to form into a bow echo, resulting in areas of wind damage, mainly along and east of the Blue Ridge.

Around 35 to 40 homes were damaged along with numerous large trees down by a tornado with winds estimated up to 100 MPH. The damage included: huge trees down on homes and barns, roofs lifted off and shingles blown off of houses and barns, carports collapsed on vehicles, and the windows blown out at Longhill Community Building.

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.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 04:36 UTC and running to 06:27 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 00:57 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 Roanoke radar (KFCX), 73 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 05:24 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 2011 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.