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The worst tornadoes in North Carolina History
An average of 30 tornadoes are reported every year in North Carolina, but there are
RALEIGH, N.C. — All the information below was received from the resources from NC State’s Climate Office. A big thanks to Corey Davis for spending the time for us to give you the most comprehensive tornado history statistics. Corey’s notes are in each subsection in italics.
Since 1950, North Carolina has had nearly 1500 reported tornadoes. Over a third of those occurring in April and May. Let’s raise that North Carolina tornado IQ.
Something to know before we move on:
Tornadoes are measured by the Enhanced Fujita scale ranging from EF-0 to the infamous EF-5. This enhanced scale is designed to relate types of damage more easily with wind speeds and intensities. This enhanced scale came about in 2007, so all reports before then are listed without the E on the legacy FUJITA SCALE, or simply F0 to F5.
However, North Carolina has never seen an F5 or EF5.
The Strongest Tornado:
North Carolina has 12 F4 tornadoes on record, but no since 2007 and thus no EF4s. The old Fujita scale didn’t estimate exact wind speeds like we to today. So for the tiebreaker, let’s use path length. The longest track F4 was on the ground for 83 miles. With winds likely ranging over 165 mph.
Corey Davis: “While it was only at F-4 strength over a small portion of its path in west and north Raleigh, it was a deadly and extremely damaging tornado over its full path length.”
The Longest Track Tornado:
November 23, 1992, was the third day of a historic muti state tornado outbreak, but the tornado that touched down in Harnett County (just south of Raleigh) tracked northeastward for 160 miles, all the way to Elizabeth City. The peak strength was an F3.
Corey Davis: “I will note that some literature has theorized that this could have been a family of multiple tornadoes spawned by the same supercell, but since it’s prior to the Doppler radar era, we have no way of knowing for sure. This is a common question about many long-lived historical tornadoes, including the apparent US record “Tri-State tornado” in March 1925, which was said to have a continuous path length of 219 miles.”
The Widest Tornado:
One of the most famous days in North Carolina weather history was March 28, 1984.
The top four widest tornadoes in North Carolina history all occurred during the March 1984 outbreak: 14 tornadoes were confirmed that day and two were over a mile wide.
This F4 in Scotland, Robeson, and Cumberland counties had a width of over 2600 yards (2,640 yards on graphic), or 1.5 miles
And The F-4 tornado in Scotland County (which tracked in from Marlboro County, SC) had a width of over 2100 yards (2,113 yards on graphic), or 1.2 miles.
- 3RD WIDEST: The F-4 tornado in Sampson, Duplin, and Wayne counties had a width of 1,407 yards, or 0.8 miles
- 4TH WIDEST: The F-3 tornado in Bladen, Cumberland, and Sampson counties also had a width of 1,407 yards, or 0.8 miles
The Most Deadly Tornado:
The March 1984 outbreak also had the state’s deadliest tornado This was the F-4 tornado in Lenoir, Greene, and Pitt counties, which was blamed for 16 deaths and 153 injuries.
Corey Davis: There’s a tie for the second-deadliest tornado. Both the Bladen/Cumberland/Sampson F-3 tornado on March 28, 1984 and the Bertie/Hertford EF-3 tornado on April 16, 2011 caused 12 fatalities.
The Biggest Single-Day Outbreak:
The most famous North Carolina tornado outbreak was associated with another muti-day system. April 16, 2011 dropped 32 tornadoes across North Carolina.
Corey Davis: I have written about that event, and the potent atmospheric pattern that led to it, on our Climate Blog. (You may notice that the blog post shows 30 tornadoes on that date instead of 32. In more recent reanalysis, SPC split up two tornado tracks that crossed coastal waters into separate events, rather than keeping them grouped as single events.)
Most Tornadoes in One Year:
The busiest year was 2004, which had 67 tornadoes through the year. This year was unique since most of the tornadoes were reported in June, August and September (outside of the usual April or May).
The reason? 2004 is also famous as being one of the most active and strong hurricane seasons on record. So most the tornadoes that season were from the remnants of Bonnie, Charley, Gaston, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne.
However, 2011 and 1998 are a close second finishing with 66 tornadoes. Where as mentioned before, almost half of 2011’s happened in one day.
Most Active Season:
Mentioning 2011 one more time, the spring along with the April 16th had a total of 51 tornadoes. 13 of which happened less than two weeks later April 27-28. Also Making April 2011 also the most active month in North Carolina history.
Corey Davis: “In second place is the spring of 1998, with 45 tornadoes. At the heart of that season were the 20 tornadoes on May 7, mostly in the western Piedmont. That event also included our state’s most recent and final F-4 tornado in Caldwell County.
Among summer seasons, the record is held by 2004, with 35 tornadoes. And in the fall, 2018 had 31 tornadoes, including 27 tornadoes over a five-day period associated with Hurricane Florence.”
Tornadoes per category:
Tornado records are only 73 years old as of 2023 but as mentioned, tornadoes started getting an EF tag since 2007. So we will break the data into two parts.
From 1950 to 2006, here are the number of tornadoes per category. F1s account for a majority (41.3) of all of NCs tornadoes during this period but the weaker F0 and F1 make up nearly 80% of all of the recorded tornadoes. Anything over F2 strength is considered a strong tornado. However, of the 12 strongest recorded tornadoes (F4), 8 of those all came in the 80s!
Fujita Scale
- F-0: 381
- F-1: 410
- F-2: 161
- F-3: 29
- F-4: 12
- F-5: 0
From 2007-2022, there has never been an EF4, and EF0’s have accounted more most of our tornadoes. In this smaller sample size, The weaker EF0 and EF1s, account for about 84% of all on record.
Enhanced Fujita Scale
- EF-0: 251
- EF-1: 162
- EF-2: 55
- EF-3: 11
- EF-4: 0
- EF-5: 0
Over the last 30 years, North Carolina is averaging 30 tornadoes per year, with a majority happening east of Charlotte. A reason to stay Weather Aware, especially during the spring time.