March 28, 1984; map by Ted Fujita. This was the most violent and destructive tornado outbreak of the 20th century in North Carolina. Producing tornadoes in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, these storms did a half billion in damage. Two of the largest tornadoes ever observed - with circulations of 2.5 miles, struck different parts of Bennettsville, South Carolina 15 minutes apart, leaving a damage swath well over 5 miles wide in northern Marlboro County. Several other storms left damage paths a mile or more in width, and the majority of the storms in this outbreak left F3 or F4 damage, near-F5 in the Bennettsville area. This was the worst outbreak since the Feb. 19 1884 Enigma Outbreak.' Excepting that outbreak, this 1984 outbreak - 100 years, 1 month and 1 week later - was unprecedented in its' violence, in this part of the country. Along with tornadoes (mapped here), severe hailstorms left millions in damage in their wake in Greenville and Columbia, SC, Charlotte, Raleigh, and Fayetteville, NC, and in the Chesapeake and Virginia Beach areas of Virginia.

Tornadoes 4 - 16 were produced by one supercell thunderstorm which tracked from eastern Alabama to Virginia Beach (and offshore from there), and the damage paths left behind by individual tornadoes within this thunderstorm were linked by areas of severe microburst wind and hail damage, leaving a nearly continual damage path from West Central South Carolina to Northeastern North Carolina, a distance of nearly 400 miles.