EF1 tornado, Scotts to Stony Pt, North Carolina, August 17, 2021

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

August 17, 2021

Touchdown

11:15 AM EDT (15:15 UTC)

Lifted

11:25 AM EDT (15:25 UTC)

On the ground

10 minutes

Path length

5.1 miles (8.2 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$15,000

Counties

Iredell and Alexander counties

Touchdown point

35.804, -81.022

Lift-off point

35.868, -81.067

Record number

2108170915-01

16 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 110 mph.

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

Tropical Storm Fred made landfall in the Florida Panhandle on the 16th and lifted steadily north through Georgia and into the southern Appalachians during the 16th and throughout the 17th. Tropical moisture and strong southeast upslope flow into the Blue Ridge mountains resulted in widespread showers and some thunderstorms producing extremely heavy rainfall rates. By the time the rain tapered off by the end of the 17th, 24-hour rainfall amounts of 5-12 inches were reported across portions of the mountains and foothills. This was in addition to a small area of 5-10 inch amounts that fell across portions of the southern North Carolina mountains during the morning of the 16th. The result of this rainfall was significant to catastrophic flash flooding across portions of the French Broad and Pigeon River basins, including some of the worst flooding to impact these areas in almost 20 years. The most severe flooding occurred in portions of southern and central Haywood County, where a number of fatalities and hundreds of millions of dollars and damage occurred. In addition, a brief tornado touched down in Iredell County and tracked into Alexander County.

NWS storm survey found the path of an EF1 tornado that developed in western Iredell County along Massey Deal Rd, just west of Old Mountain Rd. The tornado tracked north-northwest, crossing Miracle Farm Rd and Lindsey Farm Rd before crossing into Alexander County near Smith Farm Rd south of Stony Point. Damage was almost entirely limited to uprooted hardwoods and snapped softwoods, with the most significant damage being a stand of pine trees on Waugh Farm Rd that were snapped as high as 20 feet above the ground. A couple of homes did receive very minor structural damage.

NWS storm survey determined a tornado that began in western Iredell County crossed into Alexander County near Smith Farm Rd south of Stony Point. Damage was almost entirely limited to uprooted hardwoods and snapped softwoods. A couple of homes did receive very minor structural damage. The tornado appeared to lift near Lentz Rd just west of Highway 64.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

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 12:45 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 Roanoke radar (KFCX), 149 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 15:17 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 2021 tornado in North CarolinaEvery tornado in North Carolina since 1950Warnings in force in North Carolina nowThe forecast where you are

21 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.