EF0 tornado, Duan, North Carolina, May 1, 2017

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

May 1, 2017

Touchdown

3:54 PM EDT (19:54 UTC)

Lifted

3:58 PM EDT (19:58 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

2.7 miles (4.3 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$10,000

County

Catawba County

Touchdown point

35.610, -81.200

Lift-off point

35.640, -81.170

Record number

1705011354-01

18 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS GSP, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 107 mph.

• bent over tree was 40-50 ft tall. upper part of snapped tree was obliterated
• note small tree trunk broken behind uprooted tree
• tree perhaps 50-60 ft tall , trunk abt 2 ft diam at base
• top of tree across concrete block building seen in prev point

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

A line of heavy rain showers and thunderstorms developed ahead of a cold front and pushed through western North Carolina during the afternoon. Isolated pockets of wind damage occurred within the line, along with a brief, weak tornado in Catawba County.

NWS Storm survey found a couple of areas of weak tornado damage embedded within a larger downburst damage swath between maiden and newtown. The tornado touched down twice along a 3 mile path, first off jack Whitener Rd and Sipe Rd. The tornado lifted briefly before touching down again near Smyre Farm Rd just south of highway 16. At least one home received minor damage from falling trees.

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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:16 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 Greer radar (KGSP), 125 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:54 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

14 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.