EF1 tornado, Cremo to Trap, North Carolina, March 31, 2017

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

March 31, 2017

Touchdown

6:15 PM EDT (22:15 UTC)

Lifted

6:24 PM EDT (22:24 UTC)

On the ground

9 minutes

Path length

4.8 miles (7.7 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$250,000

County

Bertie County

Touchdown point

36.208, -76.933

Lift-off point

36.221, -76.849

Record number

1703311615-01

4 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS AKQ, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 90 mph.

• Couple of trees down. Mobile home damaged.

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

Scattered severe thunderstorms in advance of low pressure and a cold front produced damaging winds, large hail, and one tornado across portions of northeast North Carolina.

NWS storm survey determined that an EF1 tornado caused an intermittent damage path nearly 5 miles long and 50 to 100 yards wide. Initial damage, mainly to trees, was seen along and just west of Sally Freeman Road, about a mile south of Powellsville. The tornado tracked east northeast, crossing Route 42 near Rockpile Road, where additional damage to trees and a mobile home was seen. The path then continued|to Quebec Road, north of Route 42, where multiple trees were downed, some farm buildings were damaged, and a mobile home was overturned and destroyed. The tornado weakened as it moved into the wooded area adjacent to the location of the damage mentioned above. The damage was most intense near the northeast end of the track.

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

7 minutes of warning. NWS AKQ issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:08 UTC, 7 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:54 UTC and running to 01:30 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:52 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 Norfolk radar (KAKQ), 86 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:16 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 2017 tornado in North CarolinaEvery tornado in North Carolina since 1950Warnings in force in North Carolina nowThe forecast where you are

2 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.