EF1 tornado, Willis Lndg, North Carolina, September 15, 2018

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

September 15, 2018

Touchdown

3:00 AM EDT (07:00 UTC)

Lifted

3:05 AM EDT (07:05 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

2.5 miles (4.0 km)

Path width

275 yards (251 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Onslow County

Touchdown point

34.624, -77.236

Lift-off point

34.660, -77.251

Record number

1809150100-01

Hurricane Florence was a long-lived Cape Verde hurricane and the wettest tropical cyclone on record in the Carolinas. The sixth named storm, third hurricane, and the first major hurricane of the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season, Florence originated from a strong tropical wave that emerged off the west coast of Africa on August 30, 2018. Florence became a tropical depression near Cape Verde on August 31 and progressed west-northwest, becoming a Tropical Storm on September 1. Florence strengthened rapidly on September 4���5, becoming a Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph. Florence weakened to a tropical storm by September 7, but the system regained hurricane strength on September 9 and major hurricane status with winds of 140 mph on September 10. However, increasing wind shear caused the storm's winds to gradually weaken over the next few days. However, the storm's wind field continued to grow. By the evening of September 13, Florence had been downgraded to a Category 1 hurricane. Hurricane Florence made landfall near Wrightsville Beach early on Saturday September 15, and weakened further as it slowly moved inland.||Florence produced extensive wind damage along the North Carolina coast from Cape Lookout, across Carteret, Onslow, Pender and New Hanover counties. Thousands of downed trees caused widespread power outages to nearly all of eastern North Carolina. The historic legacy of Hurricane Florence will be record breaking storm surge of 9 to 13 feet and widespread devastating rainfall of 20 to 30 inches, locally up to 36 inches, which produced catastrophic and life-threatening flooding. The hardest hit areas included New Bern, Newport, Belhaven, Oriental, North Topsail Beach and Jacksonville, along with Downeast Carteret County, or basically south of a line from Kinston to Cedar Island. A storm total rainfall of 34.00 inches was reported in Swansboro, while the NWS office in Newport recorded 25.20 inches. Wind gusts of 106 mph were reported at Cape Lookout with 105 mph at Fort Macon.

A tornado touched down in Camp Lejeune. Maximum winds were estimated at around 90 mph. The damage path started along Highway 172, south of Lyman Road. Most of the damage was confined to about 10 to 15 snapped pine trees with a few uprooted pine trees. Most of this damage was oriented toward the southwest or west. However, a small building that was open toward the west, had damage inside the building pointed toward the southeast or in the opposite direction of the storm motion. We were not able to examine the total path, but more damage was found to the northwest of the initial point crossing Lyman Road. The time was based on radar data.

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

26 minutes of warning. NWS MHX issued a tornado warning for this county at 06:34 UTC, 26 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 07:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 03:03 UTC and running to 11:00 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 05:56 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 Morehead City radar (KMHX), 37 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 06:56 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 2018 tornado in North CarolinaEvery tornado in North Carolina since 1950Warnings in force in North Carolina nowThe forecast where you are

9 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.