EF0 tornado, Osbornville to Clingman, North Carolina, August 17, 2021

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

August 17, 2021

Touchdown

1:11 PM EDT (17:11 UTC)

Lifted

1:13 PM EDT (17:13 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.7 miles (1.1 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$85,000

County

Wilkes County

Touchdown point

36.172, -80.928

Lift-off point

36.182, -80.932

Record number

2108171111-01

8 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS RNK, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 81 mph.

• Siding and shingles blown off a well constructed home. Large pieces of metal weighing over 200 pounds blown approximately 20-30 yards to the west. Property owner has video of the tornado.
• Vinyl and siding blown off north facing side of home.
• Roofing of large chicken house blown off.
• A few softwood trees uprooted. This was the last point of visible damage for this tornado.

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

Remnants of Tropical Storm Fred moved north from the Gulf Coast states into the Central Appalachians. Strong low level shear and abundant tropical moisture sparked low topped, rotating thunderstorms which helped spawn two brief EF-0 tornados in Wilkes County. Non-rotating damaging thunderstorm winds also occurred in portions of northwest North Carolina during the afternoon of the 17th and again during the late evening of the 17th into the early morning hours of the 18th. These multiple rounds of thunderstorms|led to at least 9,000 residents losing power in northwest North Carolina. In addition, a south to southeast flow of high tropical moisture allowed for several inches of rain to fall over portions of our area, with the highest amounts in the NC mountains.

A EF-0 tornado, captured on video and with peak winds estimated to be 80 MPH, briefly touched down near Mahaffey Road in far southeast Wlikes County. This tornado damaged siding and took off a few shingles to one home, then uprooted a few small trees before lifting less than a mile northwest of its touchdown.

An EF-0 tornado, with peak winds estimated at 80 MPH, touched down near the intersection of Clingman Road and Briarlea Drive and traveled northwest through a populated area and caused minor damage to a few homes. This damage was mainly in the form of siding damage and removed shingles. A chicken coop and outbuilding were severely damaged. In addition, a few small trees were uprooted. The tornado traveled northwest and quickly lifted, less than a mile of its initial touchdown, near the intersection of Clingman Road and Cedar Forest Road.

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

36 minutes of warning. NWS RNK issued a tornado warning for this county at 16:35 UTC, 36 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 17:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:06 UTC and running to 22:31 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 16:10 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), 111 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:08 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.