Do Tornadoes ever hit the Charlotte area (Mooresville, Columbus: hotel, house)

[Cookie214]

: Do Tornadoes ever hit the Charlotte/Fort Mill area.
Thinking of moving to Fort Mill @ Sun City. Is this a nice area to live in? Is it a safe area?

[lovesMountains]

Originally Posted by Cookie214

: Do Tornadoes ever hit the Charlotte/Fort Mill area.
Thinking of moving to Fort Mill @ Sun City. Is this a nice area to live in? Is it a safe area?

Not often. Once or twice a year you hear of one touching down somewhere in the surrounding counties, but in Charlotte itself I think it's been several years - to the best of my recollection. Sun City looks like it's going to be just great - you could do a whole lot worse than living there!

[flyingscotsman]

Last time one hit it was north in Gaston County & Mooresville, but they are fairly rare.

[silverwing]

I'm a little mystified at the way people dither about tornadoes striking this area This isn't the first post bringing up the worries about tornadoes.

There are other weather patterns of greater frequency around here that cause damage. Probably one of the most notorious was a microburst created by a thunderstorm that brought down a plane over the Charlotte airport in 1994
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USAir_Flight_1016

We've lived in the Piedmont 20 years and have seen freakish straight-line winds come out of the mountains and create quite a tempest. We've seen ice storms that pulled the weak-rooted pine trees out of the ground and block roads. I worry more about the plain ol' thunder and lightning storms that pop up in the late afternoons during the summer. Our satellite dish has been zapped three times, causing the expensive replacement of parts. Lightning struck close enough to an outbuilding that it fried the wiring. We cut back the pine trees surrounding our house because they are easily toppled by just plain high winds.

Tornadoes do occur in NC, but not with enough regularity (IMO) to cause a greater concern than other kinds of weather damage

[Beffrey2]

Tornados hit anywhere in North or South Carolina. You can't escape that anywhere. I would say overall we get our fair share every year. Just look at that map.

[silverwing]

Originally Posted by Beffrey2

Tornados hit anywhere in North or South Carolina. You can't escape that anywhere. I would say overall we get our fair share every year. Just look at that map.

That's a summary over a ~50 year period. NC ranks close to the middle scale as far as tornado occurances. When we do have them, they make big news.

http://www.starnewsonline.com/apps/p...6049/-1/news29

But deadly tornadoes are rare in North Carolina. Boyles said Thursday's tornado in Riegelwood was Columbus County's first fatal twister and only the 15th observed tornado since 1950.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, North Carolina averaged 19 tornadoes a year between 1953 and 2004. That was fewer than all Southern states except for South Carolina and Tennessee. Florida leads the list with an average of 55 twisters.

The Disaster Center ranked North Carolina 22nd in the nation for tornado frequency and 20th for the number of deaths, with an average of two, between 1950 and 1995.

I'd still be more worried about getting on the road during one of our infrequent ice storms and having someone plow into me than tornadoes. But I'm from the Midwest, where we grow up with the yearly threat of twisters. One becomes more sanguine about them, living in states like NC

[xray42]

I Have been to Charlotte two times, once in july 06 and once in jan 07. This past summer there were very bad thunder/lightning storms, with down pours. I had to stop on the road and hide under an overpass for about an hour. Only to get back to my hotel and have the rain gush under the door-LOL
In january we were in gaston county-toronado hit there we were driving away from that-all i could think of is-where do you hide,no basements'
So two times strange weather in charlotte-but i love it there and cant wait to move this spring. Where i live now-central ny-we have had some toronados,earthquakes,etc-so reallly is there any safe place-nahh, dont let it stop you for what you want-good luck

[Ed&Betty]

Where can you live and have no chance of ever being impacted by weather?

And for that matter the odds of weather related accidents or property damage are small.

I have lived in FLorida 27 years and have not had a disaster to me or my family.
I realize that it could happen today, but thats true if I live in NC or FL......

[mm34b]

Another map.

Mitchell, Ashe and Polk counties are the ones with no observed tornado activity during the time period indicated.

[friendnc]

They can happen, but it's rare. I've lived here in the Charlotte area all of my 41 years and have never seen one.