5 tornadoes confirmed in the Charlotte area. The strongest packed 130 mph winds.
Five tornadoes touched down during Thursday’s severe weather in the Charlotte region, the National Weather Service confirmed during field assessments Friday and Saturday.
The strongest, an EF-2 with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph, formed just before 11 a.m. at Battleground Road and Interstate 85 in Grover. That’s south of Kings Mountain in Cleveland County.
The tornado traveled about 8.6 miles into the Crowders Mountain area of Gaston County. The twister uprooted trees, damaged a couple of homes and blew down two high tension electrical transmission towers, an NWS storm damage assessment team reported.
No injuries as a result of the tornadoes were reported, according to the NWS.
EF-2 strikes Kannapolis
At 11:45 a.m., an EF-2 with maximum sustained winds of 125 mph hit Kannapolis, NWS meteorologists said.
The tornado began just west of I-85 near near Lane Street, “snapping and uprooting trees as it crossed the interstate and moved east along Lane Street.” The tornado traveled 6.4 miles, next along Old Salisbury-Concord Road to Gold Fish Road, where several homes were damaged.
The twister moved east along Irish Potato Road, damaging a home, before crossing Dutch Buffalo Creek and damaging several homes on Pless Road.
Two EF-1s touched down.
One with maximum sustained winds of 95 mph touched down west of Pineville in southern Mecklenburg County.
The other EF-1, with maximum winds of 100 mph, traveled 7.5 miles from Lawndale in Cleveland County to the Hull Road area of western Lincoln County before dissipating, an NWS damage survey team confirmed Saturday afternoon.
The area of the 100-mph twister was roughly near where a tornado killed five people in May 1989..
On Thursday, a weaker EF-0 hit the community of Gold Hill in Rowan County, NWS meteorologists said.
EF-1 is the second weakest of six types of tornadoes on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, which ranks tornadoes by wind speed and damage. EF-0 is the weakest.
EF-0 tornado in Rowan
Just before noon Thursday, an EF-0 tornado with maximum winds of 85 mph developed near the intersection of Old Beatty and St. Stephens Church roads, a mile south of Gold Hill, according to the NWS damage team.
The twister snapped and uprooted trees as it moved east along Old Beatty Road, the team found during a survey Friday. The tornado traveled about 1.5 miles before ending near the intersection of Old Beatty Road and Old U.S. 80.
The National Weather Service also confirmed an EF-1 in Spartanburg, South Carolina, that followed a 10-mile track with maximum wind speed of 110 miles per hour.
This story was originally published February 8, 2020 at 10:40 AM.