Many thanks for this fine presentation. I remember the outbreak well, but unfortunately had just left central NC on March 27, 1984 (the day before) to spend the spring in Oklahoma chasing tornadoes. But upon return to NC in June, I drove an hour to Red Springs and could not believe the enormous amount of structural and tree damage. Driving along the highway In an area that was otherwise dense forest, there was suddenly NOTHING, not a tree in sight, just stumps, for at least 2 miles. It somewhat reminded me of the photos of Russia's Tunguska event in 1908, theorized to have been a meteor. It was that bad. The massive scar upon the ground of central North Carolina was visible from the highway for more than 15 years. By the way, I met researcher Don Burgess at the NSSL while in OK, and became the laughing stock his staff when they learned about my bad timing misadventure.
I lived through this outbreak as a kid. One of the tornadoes ripped off our back deck and carried it a mile away, blew in our windows and did other damage to our house, but didn't destroy it thankfully. I believe my mom still has pictures of the damage in the area and newspaper articles from this outbreak somewhere, if I can find them I'll let you know. We had no sirens and no warning. Only became aware of the danger when we heard the tornado and then it was illuminated by lightning headed right for us. This was a very rare event for our area, we don't get that many tornadoes and very, very rarely are they F4 in strength. Scariest night of my life. Thank you for your coverage of this event. It rarely gets spoken of!
That's definitely an experience, wow! Tornadoes are a little more uncommon than in Dixie Alley but still happen. I actually didn't know about this outbreak until an online friend told me it's so little talked about.
If you want to see plenty of aftermath photos of 1984 just go to Jonathan Finch /Bangladesh tornadoes and look under Special Case Studies / March 28 1984 . He was provided with 39 slides from University of Chicago that Ted Fujita left . There are plenty of aftermath photos of this event . I have a very large collection of photos and newspaper and video coverage of it . The actual event in the two Carolinas only took just over 6 hours . The barometer actually fell to only 975 millibars. I remember the storm very well . The lightning was flashing like a strobe light that night . Those were the worst tornadoes I've ever seen . I knew some people who lost family members .
You mention about the lack of photos. Same goes for the 1988 Raleigh NC tornado outbreak as well. Back then not expecting photos of the tornado themselves, but the aftermath photos very hard to come by. All the very notable outbreaks from 1980's and 1990's in NC have very little photographs. This goes for May 1989 outbreak and 1992 November outbreak.
No photos of the Nov. 28, 1988 F4 because it happened sometime after 1am, but a lot of people did get some incredible damage photos. I recall being asked to leave by the cops right after I photographed a destroyed K-Mart in north Raleigh the next day, but the most spectacular thing to me was the lightening that occurred from the parent supercell that was visible about 5 miles to the south. I certainly heard nothing from my location, and the wind was dead calm!
The McColl Red Springs tornado was initially thought to have reached F5 although it was tagged as a high end F4 . The Ayden Greenville tornado was also initially thought to have been a possible F5 . I saw a single wide mobile home in Beaver Dam NC that had been carried over four miles away .
Indeed they were powerful monsters, F4s and F5s are scary to even think about. A mobile home being carried 4+ mi is impressive even when considering how easy it is for even an F1 to lift/destroy one.
Why isnt the Bennettsville Tornado in the record book for widest tornado if it was 2 miles + wide. I reseached and yes it is true and if its true it should be in the records
Actually it is the McColl -Red Springs tornado that reached 2.5 miles wide near Maxton NC. It is mentioned in the book Extreme Weather as one of the largest ever known. The Bennettsville tornado reached almost 2 miles wide at the state line . One he doesn't mention is the Beaver Dam NC tornado that reached approximately 2 miles wide in Cumberland county near Fayetteville . I saw a single wide mobile home that had flown more than 4 miles away in the giant storm.
