NC weather: Swath of snapped tree left where tornado reportedly touched down in Alamance, Orange

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RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) — Severe weather is moving through central North Carolina on Monday morning.

CURRENT WEATHER ADVISORIES

  • Severe Thunderstorm Warning: Edgecombe and Wilson counties until 9:45 a.m.

LIVE RADAR: Storms moving to North Carolina coast

Just before 6:50 a.m., the First Alert Weather Team got confirmation of a tornado on the ground spotted 7 miles south of Mebane headed toward Hillsborough. Don “Big Weather” Schwenneker and Brittany Bell identified this as a radar-confirmed tornado around 6:35 and had been tracking it all morning.

Emergency managers report a swath of tree damage in southeastern Alamance county near Sutphin and Saxapahaw. Some of the trees fell on homes and other structures, but there are no reports of serious injuries at this time.

There are also reports of wind damage in Sanford, Durham County and Chatham County.

ABC11’s First Alert Weather Team said even with the storms moving out of the area, the strong wind will remain through the early afternoon.

The National Weather Service issued Wind Advisory for the entire ABC11 viewing area until 4 p.m. A Tornado Watch remains active until noon but it now only applies to Edgecombe, Halifax, Johnston, Nash, Sampson, Wayne and Wilson counties.

WATCH RADAR HERE

More than 100,000 Duke Energy customers in North and South Carolina were without power as of 5:45 a.m.

Here’s a play-by-play time frame of what to expect for central North Carolina throughout Monday:

RELATED: Duke Energy prepares for outages ahead of Easter weekend storms

Monday Morning
This is when conditions will be the worst. Severe thunderstorms will erupt during this time frame with the main line of storms arriving in our western counties by 7 a.m. The main threat will be damaging straight-line winds with gusts over 60 mph. There may also be flooding, downpours and large hail. In addition, there is the possibility of a tornado for all of central North Carolina, however, the most likely place to see an isolated tornado will be in the sandhills and west of the sandhills.

Monday Afternoon
By Afternoon there may be a lingering shower in a few spots across central North Carolina, but this is when most of us begin to dry out. It will still be windy even after the storms have passed. Then by late afternoon, some sunshine will break through the clouds and allow temperatures to rise into the low 80s.

Monday Night
Monday evening and night will be mostly clear and much cooler with overnight lows in the upper 40s/low 50s.

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