EF1 tornado, Jerry, North Carolina, September 29, 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

September 29, 2011

Touchdown

4:10 AM EDT (08:10 UTC)

Lifted

4:12 AM EDT (08:12 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.1 km)

Path width

10 yards (9 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

Property damage

$20,000

County

Tyrrell County

Touchdown point

35.890, -76.248

Lift-off point

35.890, -76.248

Record number

1109290210-01

A series of weak upper level disturbances crossed Eastern North Carolina on September 28th and 29th. A few downed trees were reported with one small tornado.

A NWS storm survey found that a EF1 tornado with maximum estimated wind speeds of 105 mph briefly touched down destroying a mobile home causing one injury. The tornado was small with a path length less than 100 yards and a path width of 10 yards. ||The touchdown occurred in a field between Newland Road and Basnight Lane. It then hit a single wide mobile home and immediately lifted back up. The mobile home was lifted off its foundation and rolled, ending up 45 degrees from its original alignment. Debris was scattered both upstream and downstream from the damaged mobile home with some debris lofted into nearby power lines. Adjacent mobile homes had minimal damage mainly to skirting. The injury occurred to a single male occupant who received a broken shoulder, lacerations, and bruises.

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.

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 05:41 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 Morehead City radar (KMHX), 136 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 08:08 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 2011 tornado in North CarolinaEvery tornado in North Carolina since 1950Warnings in force in North Carolina nowThe forecast where you are

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.