EF0 tornado, Erastus to Glenville, North Carolina, March 2, 2012

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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 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

EF0

Date

March 2, 2012

Touchdown

9:03 PM EST (02:03 UTC)

Lifted

9:07 PM EST (02:07 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

1.8 miles (2.8 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Jackson County

Touchdown point

35.184, -83.187

Lift-off point

35.184, -83.156

Record number

1203022003-01

Two supercell thunderstorms entered the North Carolina mountains during the evening hours. One of the storms produced a strong tornado in the town of Murphy in Cherokee County. The supercell remained surprisingly strong as it crossed the southern mountains, producing large hail and eventually another weak tornado in Jackson County. Later at night, storms organized into a broken line across Upstate South Carolina. The northern part of the line crossed the southern North Carolina piedmont where it produced a strong, brief tornado on the northeast side of Charlotte. The storm did not exhibit supercell characteristics, and the tornado spun up quite quickly as the line intersected a low level boundary.

An NWS storm survey found the path of a weak tornado in the Lake Glenville area. The tornado began along Pine Creek Rd about halfway between the Macon County line and the Lake. It traveled east southeast from there, crossing North Norton Rd and Woods Mountain Trail. Multiple trees were uprooted and snapped and a few homes and one church received minor roof damage. The tornado then crossed the lake and affected Glenshore Dr snapping and uprooting more trees and causing a tree to fall on a home, damaging the roof. The damage path ended there, at the shore of Lake Glenville.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

9 minutes of warning. NWS GSP issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:54 UTC, 9 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:33 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:24 UTC and running to 03:54 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 00:30 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.

Franklin (1A5), 23 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Greer radar (KGSP), 93 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:01 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 2012 tornado in North CarolinaEvery tornado in North Carolina since 1950Warnings in force in North Carolina nowThe forecast where you are

69 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 70 of them

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.