EF1 tornado, Warsaw to Beautancus, North Carolina, February 24, 2016

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

February 24, 2016

Touchdown

1:13 PM EST (18:13 UTC)

Lifted

1:14 PM EST (18:14 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.2 miles (0.3 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Duplin County

Touchdown point

35.160, -77.974

Lift-off point

35.162, -77.973

Record number

1602241213-01

4 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS MHX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 100 mph.

• Local power company replaced 10 poles of which 8-9 were broken with 1 leaning at the far end of this picture.
• Approximately half of the roof of a single-wide mobile home was torn off and thrown north into an open field behind the mobile home. No one was home at the time of the brief tornado. No injuries or fatalities occurred with this event.
• Tin roofing and insulation debris thrown north and north-northeast of the single-wide mobile home into an open field.
• Partial roof torn off single-wide mobile home. View is looking south from edge of open field to mobile home.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

The combination of strong wind shear, moderate instability and deep moisture led to several lines of severe thunderstorms and two tornadoes across eastern NC during the early afternoon of February 24, 2016. This was part of a much larger storm system which produced severe thunderstorms and tornadoes along the Gulf Coast on the previous afternoon and evening. While no deaths or injuries were reported in eastern North Carolina, 3 fatalities occurred in southeast Virginia during the late afternoon.

A NWS survey team found extensive tree damage across portions of the Warsaw area indicating an EF-0 tornado with 80 mph winds.

A NWS Storm survey team assessed an EF1 tornado with 8 power poles snapped and a roof blow off a single wide mobile home on Garner Chapel Road about 8 miles east of Calypso.

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

34 minutes of warning. NWS MHX issued a tornado warning for this county at 17:39 UTC, 34 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 18:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 16:24 UTC and running to 23:50 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 16:35 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), 73 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:13 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 2016 tornado in North CarolinaEvery tornado in North Carolina since 1950Warnings in force in North Carolina nowThe forecast where you are

25 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.