EF1 tornado, Whaley to Kellersville, North Carolina, August 14, 2023

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 14, 2023

Touchdown

12:56 AM EDT (04:56 UTC)

Lifted

1:03 AM EDT (05:03 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

3.0 miles (4.8 km)

Path width

35 yards (32 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$5,000

Counties

Avery and Watauga counties

Touchdown point

36.233, -81.955

Lift-off point

36.238, -81.904

Record number

2308142256-01

24 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS GSP and NWS MRX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 105 mph.

• No visible tree damage or damage to old barn like structures. No roof damage or other damage noted.
• One trunk of pine tree snapped at this location. Spoke with homeowner and said there was a lot more damage on NC side where he helped cut trees blocking roadways.
• Numerous trees snapped and uprooted. Narrow path of about 25 yards.
• Massive number of trees down here

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

Isolated thunderstorms developed over western North Carolina during the afternoon. A couple of the storms produced brief strong-to-damaging wind gusts. Additional thunderstorms, along with a few storm clusters then moved into the mountains from east Tennessee during the late evening and overnight, resulting in a rare tornado, along with additional brief damaging wind gusts.

A cold front crossed western North Carolina during the early morning hours on August 15th with associated showers and storms. Some of these storms reached severe levels, producing damaging winds over the mountains and foothills of Northwest North Carolina and a tornado in Watauga County.

NWS storm survey found the path of a rare EF1 tornado over far northern Avery County. The tornado touched down just east of where Dark Ridge Rd crosses into Tennessee, where multiple large tree limbs were snapped. The damage path extended east/northeast into a heavily wooded area, re-emerging in the Whaley community, crossing Joe Parlier Rd and Beech Mountain Rd, before moving along Buckeye Rd. The most significant damage was observed in this area, with multiple small-to-medium size trees snapped and some larger trees uprooted. The damage path was lost near this point, as the tornado crossed into another heavily wooded area. It was determined that the tornado continued into Watauga County just south of Buckeye Rd, as additional damage was found in that county. This was only the second confirmed tornado in Avery County's history, with the other one having occurred on 9 April 1965.

The tornado moved a short distance into western Watauga County from Avery County, NC. Sporadic uprooted hardwood trees were noted by a ground survey and drone flight in a wooded area between Buckeye Road and Seminole Trail. The tornado traveled approximately one-third of a mile, and dissipated before reaching Blevins Lane and Seminole Trail. Damage values are estimated.

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

1 minute of warning. NWS GSP issued a tornado warning for this county at 04:55 UTC, 1 minute before the tornado touched down, in force until 05:09 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 00:34 UTC and running to 07:00 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. The outlook in force was issued at 00:59 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 Knoxville radar (KMRX), 132 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:55 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 2023 tornado in North CarolinaEvery tornado in North Carolina since 1950Warnings in force in North Carolina nowThe forecast where you are

4 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.