What takes a lifetime to build can be destroyed in a moment.
Case in point: March 28, 1984, when a line of tornadoes carved a hacksaw-like path through eastern North Carolina.
Faye Watson, a resident of Red Springs — a Robeson County town in the eye of one of four F-4 tornadoes that swept through the state that afternoon — referred to The Robesonian How fast everything happened.
“Suddenly we heard a whistle. It sounded like a train and we realized it was a tornado,” Watson said. “We told the children to go to the basement immediately. As we ran, we grabbed a few pillows, but by the time we got down there it was almost over.”
Watson’s family escaped uninjured, but many others did not during our state’s deadliest tornado outbreak of the 20th century.
On the 40th anniversary of the outbreak in the Carolinas, we look back at what made March 28, 1984. Such a cruel dayhow event takes placeand it legal area among our most impactful weather events.
A powerful model
Severe weather in the spring is hardly uncommon, but it still takes a unique set of ingredients to support such strong and long-lived tornadoes on this day.
The focus of this event is a deeper area of low pressure Watch from the west. Just before the outbreak began, minimum pressure near Athens, GA dropped to 976 millibars – equivalent to a Category 2 hurricane making landfall in the Carolinas.
The storms form along a warm frontal boundary that extends from the low pressure center into eastern North Carolina and separates two very different air masses. In Canada’s frigid northwest, temperatures were in the 20s and 30s on the morning of the outbreak. To the south and east was a humid, tropical air mass that warmed into the 70s and even low 80s just hours before the outbreak began.
In another country trough in the jet stream stretching from the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf coast are also approaching, and as that cold air moves into the upper levels of the atmosphere, it adds to the instability.
It’s only a matter of time before warm air near the ground begins to rise rapidly through the cooler air above, causing thunderstorms. And those storms are set to last and be severe.
A measure of atmospheric instability, known as Convective potential energy is available or CAPE, shows astronomical values of about 3,000 Joules per kilogram across the eastern Carolinas, representing a nearly endless source of fuel for storms once they form.
Strong low-level southwesterly winds will cause those storms to move along the warm front, which will provide a persistent lifting mechanism to take advantage of that instability.
Additionally, counterclockwise circulation around the low pressure center caused a strong southward flow into eastern North Carolina. That brings in even more warm, moist air to fuel the already unstable air mass.
And because of high wind speeds and variable wind direction in the lowest miles of the atmosphere, intense wind shear creates the rotational force needed to form tornadoes.
Combined, those ingredients mean the stage is set for longevity supercell thunderstorms driven by strong, rotating winds that can support widespread and intense tornadoes, the likes of which North Carolina has not seen in generations.
Timeline of the tornado
The 1980s were not the most advanced period in terms of weather forecasting. Forecasting computer models was still in its infancy and until the birth of NEXRAD Network in 1988, the National Weather Service used much older radar equipment built on World War II-era technology, lacking velocity data that would help track rotation at the center of tornadoes.
But despite being in a relatively more primitive period, all signs point to the possibility of an eventful day before March 28, 1984. The previous evening, although there was some uncertainty about exactly where warm fronts might form, forecast discussion from the Raleigh NWS office assessed them “expect we would have [a] Busy tomorrow and tomorrow night.”
On the morning of the event, the NWS Severe Localized Storms Unit – the predecessor to the modern Storm Prediction Center – placed the Carolinas in a High risk severe weather, the highest threat level of five.
The first severe afternoon thunderstorms broke out around 2:30 p.m. in northern Georgia. They continued in South Carolina, including the first of that day’s seven F-4 tornadoes that appeared around 5 p.m. just north of Columbia.
Around 6:25 p.m., a pair of F-4 tornadoes crossed the state line into Scotland County. One was lifted after just three miles, but the other stayed on the ground for another 35 miles, hitting the towns of Maxton and Red Springs.
In the middle of a path up to 2.5 miles wide, “every significant building in Red Springs was damaged by an F-1 or F-2,” said renowned tornado researcher Dr. Theodore Fujita, who visited visit to survey the area and investigate the type of tornado responsible said. outbreak.
At 6:44 p.m., an F-3 tornado touched down in northern Bladen County and continued 40 miles into Cumberland and Sampson counties, ripping through towns such as Beaver Dam and Salemburg with dozens killed along the way. Go.
In Roseboro, resident Carmen Faircloth told Morningstar Wilmington that “it seemed like a lifetime but it actually only took a minute or two” for the tornado – moving at nearly 60 miles per hour – to reduce his home to rubble.
Another F-4 tornado appeared just north of Clinton at 7:15 p.m. and its 21-mile path passed through the towns of Faison, Calypso and Mount Olive, where “it looked like we were hit.” bomb,” based on Keith Evans from Carolina Power & Light.
Near sunset, when many spring storms begin to fade, Different temperatures fueling instability remains evident. By 7 p.m., Greensboro had dropped to 45°F, while Kinston remained at 70°F and was next in the path of the approaching storms.
Shortly after 7:30 p.m., an F-3 tornado in Lenoir County tore through La Grange, injuring 81 people, and an F-4 landed there and continued northeast 28 miles into Pitt County, leaving 16 people dead. In Greenville, the tornado tore through homes and mobile homes until “there was nothing left,” fire chief Tony Brannon said. Eastern Carolina.
The remainder of the evening saw a cluster of six tornadoes in northeastern North Carolina between Rocky Mount and the Great Dismal Swamp, rated at F-1 and F-3 intensity. Each event could headline almost any other severe weather event, but on this day, they were simply dramatic and destructive aftershocks after an afternoon of devastating tornadoes. almost continuously.
Still the record holder
Total, 14 tornadoes were in the state that day, including four at F-4 intensity during a frantic two hours that evening. The devastation they left behind was enormous. Total property damage in the Carolinas amounted to at least $578 million, with 57 people killed. Of those, 42 occurred in North Carolina, along with at least 800 injuries.
Gov. Jim Hunt said this was “the worst natural disaster we have had in a hundred years in North Carolina.” While mountain flood of July 1916 more dangerous, with an estimated 80 deaths, and Storm HazelThe wind covered a wider area, and it was difficult to say that the governor’s words were an exaggeration. Few events have flattened entire communities in an instant like the 1984 tornado did.
Perhaps the only previous severe weather event at the same ballpark was the so-called Mysterious outbreak a century earlier on February 19, 1884. On that day, at least nine tornadoes affected North Carolina, including an F-4 in Rockingham County that killed 23 people.
Over the past 40 years, we have rarely seen the same power unleashed by Mother Nature on March 28, 1984. The High Risk designation has only been used in eastern North Carolina four times since then. from that.
In a bit of tragic irony, one such case occurred on March 27, 1994 – almost ten years after the events of 1984 – during the event. Palm Sunday outbreak saw another round of deadly, prolonged tornadoes reach North Carolina.
Our last High Risk event was on April 16, 2011, which included a record-setting event 30 tornadoes in a single day. But among North Carolina’s other tornado records, the March 28, 1984 outbreak prevails.
That day had four of the 12 F-4 tornadoes in North Carolina in the Storm Prediction Center’s modern records since 1950 and was the most in a single event. Its 42 deaths were the most in a single day from a tornado outbreak. And with average track widths ranging from 0.8 miles to 1.5 miles, our top four widest tornadoes on record occurred during this event.
It’s another testament to the incredible combination of ingredients that come together in North Carolina to support widespread, intense tornadoes. more typical the plains and deep southern regions.
While it may lack the ability to recognize a storm’s name or the detailed data and social network calculations of more modern events, the Carolinas tornado outbreak occurred on March 28, 1984. , are among our most extreme weather events and one of the most frequent. destructive weather days in our state’s history.
On the eve of a new severe weather season in 2024, the lesson from 1984 still applies: that waiting until a tornado warning is issued is too late to start preparing. Instruct from the National Weather Service can help you and your family be ready for action if and when a storm threatens.
Severe storms can and do happen every year in North Carolina, and as the March 1984 outbreak vividly and tragically demonstrated, they can leave scars in just a few moments – on town, home and family – lasts a lifetime.
To learn more about this event, see the summary from NWS Wilmington, NWS Morehead CityAnd NWS Raleigh.
