EF0 tornado, Mt Gould to Meege Xrds, North Carolina, May 5, 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 5, 2017

Touchdown

7:27 AM EDT (11:27 UTC)

Lifted

7:45 AM EDT (11:45 UTC)

On the ground

18 minutes

Path length

11.7 miles (18.8 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$205,000

Counties

Chowan and Bertie counties

Touchdown point

36.081, -76.755

Lift-off point

36.230, -76.655

Record number

1705050527-01

21 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS AKQ, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 80 mph.

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 its associated cold front produced damaging winds and two tornadoes across portions of northeast North Carolina.

The initial tornado touchdown occurred in eastern Bertie county along Blackrock Road, snapping the tops out of trees and uprooting a few other trees as it moved northeast towards the Chowan River. Wind speeds in Bertie county were estimated around 60 to 70 mph. The tornado then tracked northeast across the Chowan River and entering Chowan county along Tynch Town Road.

The tornado tracked from Bertie county into Chowan county. In Chowan county, the tornado uprooted trees and caused minor damage to homes from Tynch Town Road and Whites Landing Road northeast to Evans Bass Road and Rocky Hock Landing Road. A barn was severely damaged on Evans Bass Road. The tornado then crossed Rocky Hock Road destroying a barn along with several outbuildings. Another barn was severely damaged and windows were blown in on a nearby house. Numerous large pines were snapped and winds were estimated at 80 mph along Rocky Hock Road.||The tornado continued moving northeast knocking a single wide mobile home off its foundation near Parish Road. More outbuildings were destroyed and a house sustained minor damage with shingle and siding loss near the intersection of Nixon Road and Parish Road. The tornado weakened as it crossed Rocky Hock Road a second time just west of Highway 32 where several trees were snapped. The end of the tornado was observed along Highway 32 just north of Center Hill Road where a few trees were uprooted.

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

14 minutes of warning. NWS AKQ issued a tornado warning for this county at 11:13 UTC, 14 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 11:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 10:25 UTC and running to 12:41 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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:30 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.

The Norfolk radar (KAKQ), 96 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 11:26 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

12 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.