1984 Carolinas tornado outbreak

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1984 Carolinas tornado outbreak

A map of confirmed tornadoes from this outbreak
Date of tornado outbreak:	March 28, 1984
Duration1:	~ 10 hours
Maximum rated tornado2:	F4 tornado
Tornadoes caused:	24
Damages:	+$578 million (non-normalized)
Fatalities:	57 deaths, 1248 injuries
Areas affected:	Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia
1Time from first tornado to last tornado 2Most severe tornado damage; see Fujita Scale

The 1984 Carolinas tornado outbreak of March 28, 1984 was the most destructive tornado to sweep through the two states since the Enigma tornado outbreak struck 100 years and 1 month earlier, according to NOAA and NCDC public records.

Contents 1 Forecast 2 South Carolina 3 Bennettsville to Red Springs tornadoes 4 Eastern North Carolina 5 Aftermath 6 Notes 7 References 8 See also

[edit] Forecast

Weather records from March 28 indicate that an earlier tornado watch had been issued covering Northern Alabama and Georgia, and small tornadoes were reported in Barrow County (2:25 P.M., Eastern Standard Time) and Henry County (2:30 P.M., EST) in north Georgia. The first severe reports from North Carolina - golf-ball sized hail reports from Macon County, NC also occurred at this time. Severe storms began entering Western South Carolina by mid-afternoon, and tornado watches had been issued for most of South Carolina, North Carolina and a portion of Virginia.

Confirmed Total	Confirmed F0	Confirmed F1	Confirmed F2	Confirmed F3	Confirmed F4	Confirmed F5
24	2	4	6	5	7	0

Sources: [1]

F#	Location	County	Time (EST)	Path length	Damage
Georgia
F1	Barrow	Barrow	03:25	12 miles	1 Injury. Tornado in Barrow County W of Athens.
F0	Henry	Henry	04:30	1 mile	Very brief touchdown SE of Atlanta.
South Carolina
F1	Due West	Abbeville	04:30	3 miles	24 Injuries. Brief touchdown.
F0	Ware Shoals	Laurens	04:40	10 miles	43 Injuries. Tornado moved between Ware Shoals and Laurens. 1 Death and 14 Injuries were also produced by non-tornadic damage in the Fountain Inn area of NW Laurens County.
F2	1st Newberry	Newberry	05:20	23 miles	1 Death, 38 Injuries. Large F2 tornado moved NE through downtown Newberry. The path of this storm was 3/4 of a mile in width in places.
F3	2nd Newberry	Newberry	05:40	19 miles	10 Injuries. Intense tornado touched down just east of downtown Newberry, and moved to the east. Over 250 houses were destroyed.
F4	Winnsboro	Fairfield	06:00	21 miles	5 Deaths, 49 Injuries. F4 tornado moved east through the northern edge of Winnsboro before crossing I-77, parallel to the previous tornado along much of its' path; the circulation was up to 1.15 mile in width. One death in a truck that was blown from the interstate. Substantial downburst damage linked the paths of this and the subsequent three tornadoes.[1][2]
F4	Kershaw	Kershaw, Lancaster	06:20	4 miles	36 Injuries. Massive timber damage reported S of Kershaw, with one nearby neighborhood destroyed.
F2	9 miles north of McBee	Chesterfield	06:40	2 miles	Tornado touched down in the Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge, producing timber damage.
F4	Cash	Chesterfield	06:45	7 miles	24 Injuries. Tornado touched down 8 miles SW of Cheraw, and destroyed several homes in the community of Cash before dissipating along the Pee Dee River W of Bennettsville. -see section on this storm
F4	Bennettsville SC (1st), Fletcher SC, Johns NC	Marlboro SC, Scotland NC	07:10	17 miles	7 Deaths, 100 Injuries. Tornado touched down very near the endpoint of the previous tornado, passing through N Bennettsville before dissipating near Laurinburg. Crossing the NC/SC line, it's area of circulation grew to a 1.75 mile width. --see section on this storm
F4	Bennettsville SC (2nd), McColl SC, Maxton NC, Red Springs NC, Shannon NC, Parkton NC	Marlboro SC, Scotland NC, Robeson NC, Cumberland NC	07:20	40 miles	4 Deaths, 395 Injuries. Tornado touched down in SE Bennettsville, causing additional destruction in the town. Tornado was 2+ miles wide in places, and it paralleled the previous tornado at distances of less than 5 miles to the state line. Damage in McColl and Red Springs was extreme. -see section on this storm
F2	west of Loris SC to Beaverdam NC	Horry SC, Columbus NC	09:35	16 miles	8 Injuries. Tornado touched down NW of Conway, and was isolated from other tornado families in this outbreak. Tornado passed close to Loris, SC and Tabor City, NC. Most damage in the Beaverdam community, south of Whiteville.
North Carolina
F1	Fairview	Union	06:10	0.5 mile	Brief touchdown in northern Union County, in the Fairview community. This storm had produced large hail and wind damage reports across south Charlotte and Matthews shortly before this tornado.
F3	Roseboro, Salemburg	Bladen, Cumberland, Sampson	07:45	40 miles	12 Deaths, 101 Injuries in Roseboro, Salemburg and Clinton.
F2	Rocky Mount	Nash	08:10	2 miles	F2 damage on the SW edge of Rocky Mount.
F4	Faison, Mount Olive	Sampson, Duplin, Wayne	08:15	21 miles	3 Deaths, 149 Injuries. Strong F4 damage in the town of Mount Olive; parts of the Mount Olive College campus were affected.
F3	between LaGrange and Walnut Creek	Wayne, Lenoir	08:30	9 miles	81 Injuries.
F4	Winterville, Ayden, Greenville	Wayne, Lenoir, Greene, Pitt	08:45	46 miles	16 Deaths, 153 Injuries. Tornado was up to 1 mile wide. Fatalities in Greene County, Winterville, Ayden & Greenville, where SE suburbs and portions of the campus of East Carolina Univ experienced severe damage.
F3	Lewiston Woodville	Bertie	08:55	6 miles	6 Deaths, 19 Injuries. NW corner of Bertie County; tornado circulation was up to 1/2 mile wide.
F2	Ahoskie	Bertie, Hertford	09:10	5 miles	7 Injuries. F2 damage in Ahoskie.
F1	E of Cambridge	Hertford	09:17	1 mile	Damage near Harrellsville and the Wiccacon River.
F3	Gatesville	Gates	09:37	14 miles	2 Deaths, 10 Injuries. Several houses destroyed along mostly rural path. Wind damage reports continued into rural parts of the city of Chesapeake, VA.
F2	Snug Harbor	Chowan, Perquimans	10:15	6 miles	1 Death, 1 Injury. Southeast of Edenton; the last tornado of the outbreak.

[edit] South Carolina

Outbreak death toll

State	Total	County	County total
North Carolina	42	Bertie	6
		Cumberland	2
		Gates	2
		Greene	7
		Perquimans	1
		Pitt	9
		Robeson	2
		Sampson	10
		Wayne	3
South Carolina	15	Fairfield	5
		Marlboro	9
		Newberry	1
Totals	57
All deaths were tornado-related

The first tornado report in South Carolina was in Abbeville County, at 3:30 P.M. This became the first in what evolved into a strengthening family of tornadoes that left damage along a path over 300 miles long in two states. Ten minutes later, a tornado was confirmed in neighboring Laurens County. Within an hour, significant (F2 and F3 - see Fujita scale) damage was reported from two tornadoes reported twenty minutes apart in the Newberry area. An even stronger tornado, rated F4, then moved from Newberry County into Fairfield County. This storm skirted the northern edge of Winnsboro, before crossing (and briefly closing) I-77. Shortly thereafter, F4 tornado damage was noted in Lancaster County, SC and Chesterfield County, SC. $14 million in damage was recorded in and around Newberry and Winnsboro, with severe, widepread damage seen in downtown Newberry and along the northern edge of Winnsboro. At the same time, the first tornado report from North Carolina was recorded - a weak F1 tornado that briefly touched down in Union County, North Carolina between Charlotte and Monroe.

[edit] Bennettsville to Red Springs tornadoes

At 5:45 P.M., another F4 tornado was reported in Chesterfield County, near the town of Cash, SC. This storm dissipated as it moved into Marlboro County, SC, and was followed by another F4, just to the southeast, and also in Marlboro County. This storm - a large, multiple-vortex tornado, struck the city of Bennettsville before crossing into Scotland County, North Carolina. Ten minutes later, yet another F4 tornado was reported in Marlboro County, passing through more of Bennettsville, where the Northwoods Shopping Center and many neighborhoods were completely destroyed, before striking McColl, SC en route to the North Carolina state line. This multiple-vortex tornado also crossed part of Scotland County, and then Robeson County in North Carolina, striking Maxton, NC, and then Red Springs, NC, where every building inside the city limits was damaged or destroyed. This trio of storms produced 11 deaths and 519 injuries; both Marlboro County storms left damage paths between near (or over) 2 miles in width in places, with at least 800 left homeless in Bennettsville.^[3][4]

[edit] Eastern North Carolina

11 additional tornadoes were subsequently reported in Eastern North Carolina, between 7:00 P.M. and 10:30 P.M. F3 damage was recorded at Salemburg, east of Fayetteville, and F4 damage was noted at Mount Olive, NC and in the Greenville, NC area. 3 deaths and 149 injuries occurred in Mount Olive, where the downtown and portions of the Mount Olive College campus sustained severe damage. Another 16 deaths and 153 injuries were caused by the Greenville tornado, which swept through the south and southeast sections of town (along with portions of the East Carolina University campus) after producing severe damage in Greene County, Winterville and Ayden. The outbreak ended just south of the Chesapeake, VA area with additional strong tornadoes striking Ahoskie and Gates County in North Carolina; straight-line wind damage continued along a path into Chesapeake.

[edit] Aftermath

Ultimately this outbreak was responsible for 57 deaths, 1248 injuries, and confirmed tornado damage in 2 counties in Georgia, 8 counties in South Carolina, and 17 counties in North Carolina, according to data from the National Weather Service and the National Climatic Data Center records and statistical data.

This was an unusual East Coast outbreak both in its' sustained intensity, and in some of its' meteorological specifics. It has been noted by Grazulis and other researchers^[5] that this outbreak developed near the center of a large-scale low, in a fashion resembling the 1925 Tri-State tornado. In this outbreak, the damage path was attributed to separate tornadoes, though one storm produced (along a rough, 250+ mile track) a family of 13 large tornadoes - 10 of which produced F3 or F4 damage, which were occasionally linked by swaths of downburst damage.

This outbreak was also part of a larger storm system that was responsible for producing severe weather across a much wider area of the eastern U.S. On the previous day, weaker tornadoes had been reported in scattered locations from Louisiana to Alabama, and a thunderstorm-caused flash flood was suspected to be the cause of a train derailment in north Florida. The northern part of the same system first spawned additional severe (non-tornadic) thunderstorms, which caused 4 additional deaths in Maryland and Pennsylvania, before then dropping snow, sleet and ice across a wide area of the northeast^[6]. The thunderstorms which produced the tornado outbreak were also responsible (according to the same data) for numerous reports of large hail and wind damage in Appalachian southwest North Carolina, and numerous larger cities (Atlanta, GA, Greenville, SC, Columbia, SC, Charlotte, North Carolina, Fayetteville, NC, Raleigh, North Carolina, Suffolk, VA, Norfolk, VA) at the periphery of the outbreak, with wind damage from thunderstorms reported as far north as Delaware.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Grazulis, Thomas P. (2001). The Tornado, page 203, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.

• Fujita, T.T., and Stiegler, D. (1985). "Detailed analysis of the tornado outbreak in the Carolinas by using radar, satellite, and aerial survey data. Preprints", 14th Conference on Severe Local Storms, Indianapolis. American Meteorological Society, p. 271-274.

• Kraft, Scott, and Timothy Harper. (April 1, 1984). "Wreckage, victims tell tornado's tale on 450-mile route", Associated Press. Syracuse Herald-American, page 16, Syracuse, New York.

[edit] See also

• List of North American tornadoes and tornado outbreaks
• Fujita scale