085 NOUS42 KRAH 151334 PNSRAH NCZ007>011-021>028-038>043-073>078-083>086-088-089-160145- PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT National Weather Service Raleigh NC Issued by National Weather Service Blacksburg VA 934 AM EDT Thu Oct 15 2026 ...NWS Damage Survey for 10/11/26 Bonnie Doone, NC Tornado Event - Update # 1... .Update...Increased track length by approximately 0.6 miles based on additional survey results. Rating: EF2 Estimated Peak Wind: 115 mph Path Length /statute/: 5.99 miles Path Width /maximum/: 150 yards Fatalities: 0 Injuries: 1 Start Date: 10/11/2026 Start Time: 11:56 AM EDT Start Location: 2 S Bonnie Doone / Cumberland County / NC Start Lat/Lon: 35.0713 / -78.969 End Date: 10/11/2026 End Time: 12:07 PM EDT End Location: 4 NE Bonnie Doone / Cumberland County / NC End Lat/Lon: 35.1385 / -78.9026 Survey Summary: A long-track storm produced mostly EF-0 to EF-1 damage, including a short, quarter-mile stretch of EF-2 damage with maximum wind speeds estimated at 115 mph. The tornado touched down near the intersection of Skibo and Morganton roads, knocking down several trees and removing a couple of HVAC units from the Burlington Shoes store within a strip mall. The tornado then likely lifted briefly before touching down again and intensifying near the Walmart along Skibo Road, where it removed nearly 10 HVAC units from the roof, causing minor damage as they tumbled across it. The tornado continued between two hotels, where it bent and collapsed poles, damaged roofs, and rolled a car or two. As the tornado continued through the Sam s Club parking lot, roughly a dozen cars were toppled or lifted, and one minor injury was reported. The tornado likely continued on a discontinuous path as it entered the residential areas to the northeast of the shopping center. The most significant tree damage occurred near Swainey Avenue and Stansfield Drive, where perhaps two dozen trees were snapped and lying in a convergent pattern in a confined area; minor structural damage occurred as well. The tornado crossed Kornbow Lake before snapping perhaps another two dozen trees between Alpine Street and Hogan Street. Sporadic tornado damage continued along a northeast path until Sandstone Drive where minor tree damage was found by local Emergency Management and has been identified as the new endpoint of the tornado track. Minor tree limb damage was also found around Ramsey St and Andrews Drive, but damage type is inconclusive to suggest the tornado was still on the ground at this point and has been classified as thunderstorm wind damage. We would like to extend our gratitude to the Emergency Management Team from the City of Fayetteville and Cumberland County for their assistance with the storm survey. && EF Scale: The Enhanced Fujita Scale classifies tornadoes into the following categories: EF0.....65 to 85 mph EF1.....86 to 110 mph EF2.....111 to 135 mph EF3.....136 to 165 mph EF4.....166 to 200 mph EF5.....>200 mph NOTE: The information in this statement is preliminary and subject to change pending final review of the event and publication in NWS Storm Data. $$  702 NOUS41 KWBC 151345 AAF PNSWSH Service Change Notice 26-48 Updated National Weather Service Headquarters Silver Spring MD 945 AM EDT Thu Oct 15 2026 To: Subscribers: -NOAA Weather Wire Service -Emergency Managers Weather Information Network -NOAAPort Other NWS Partners, Users and Employees From: David Michaud, Director NWS Central Operations Subject: Updated: Implementation of the Rapid Refresh Forecast System (RRFS) and RRFS Ensemble Forecast System (REFS): Effective November 3, 2026 Updated to reflect changes to instantaneous precipitation type post processing and product distribution. The RRFS and REFS will replace NAM, HREF, SREF, and HiresW. A full list of products being retired is available in SCN 26-47. The RRFS and REFS production implementation and the retirement of the legacy models will occur on the same day. In the event that the implementation date is declared a Critical Weather Day (CWD), an Enhanced Caution Event, or other significant weather is occurring or is anticipated to occur, implementation of this change will take place at 1200 UTC on the next weekday not declared a CWD and when no significant weather is occurring. A real-time parallel feed of RRFS and REFS has been available since August 12, 2026, on NOMADS for both NCEP Web services and NOAAPORT output here: Pre-implementation data location starting August 12, 2026: https://nomads.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/rrfs/para/ https://nomads.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/refs/para/ https://nomads.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/para/noaaport/rrf s/ https://nomads.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/para/noaaport/ref s/ Post-implementation data location November 3, 2026: https://nomads.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/rrfs/prod/ https://nomads.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/refs/prod/ NEW changes as of Oct 15, 2026 Updated to reflect adjustments to post-processing and product availability within RRFS and REFS, primarily replacing a model- generated, microphysics-based instantaneous precipitation type product with a diagnosed thermodynamic-based precipitation type calculation, and also removing accumulations of freezing rain and frozen rain (sleet) as output products. These changes are in response to an over-forecasting of freezing rain and under- forecasting of sleet within RRFS/REFS. 1) RRFS and REFS Ensemble Member Product Updates: - Removed freezing rain (FRZR) and frozen rain (FROZR) accumulation fields from NOMADS output files: rrfs.tCCz.2dfld.{reskm}.fFFF.{dom}.grib2 rrfs.tCCz.2dfld.{reskm}.subh.fFFF.{dom}.grib2 rrfs.tCCz.13km.fFFF.na.grib2 rrfs.tCCz.m00?.2dfldnomads.{reskm}.fFFF.{dom}.grib2 - Modified component fields of instantaneous precipitation type (CSNOW, CICEP, CFRZR, CRAIN) across above listed primary 2D NOMADS files. 2) REFS Ensemble Product Updates: - Removed freezing rain accumulation (FRZR) probabilities from: refs.tCCz.prob.fFF.${dom}.grib2 - Removed duplicate surface height record (HGT:sfc) from: refs.tCCz.sprd.fFF.${dom}.grib2 - Modified composite reflectivity (REFC) and 1 km radar reflectivity (REFD) calculations in probability-matched mean (PMMN) products to ignore negative reflectivity values, eliminating artifacts in negative reflectivity ranges: refs.tCCz.pmmn.fFF.${dom}.grib2 Where {dom} is the domain, {reskm} is the resolution in km 3) Addition of firewx domain location file to NOMADS: Under rrfs/v1.0 firewx.YYYYMMDD/CC/input/rrfs.tCCz.firewxnest_center_latlon Previously issued summary: The development of the RRFS and REFS was a coordinated effort between the Office of Modeling and Development and NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), specifically the Global Systems Laboratory, and a wide-ranging network of partners. This collaboration included other NWS entities, academic institutions, other federal agencies, and international partners. 1) RRFS modeling system This transition to RRFS will provide an hourly updated modeling system covering the North America region at 3 km horizontal grid spacing, which, combined with the associated model retirements, will greatly unify and simplify the "convective scale" (approximately 3 km grid spacing) suite of regional models within the NWS operational modeling suite. As a deterministic system running to 84 h for the 00/06/12/18 UTC cycles, and to 18 h for other hourly cycles, the RRFS will fully retire the North American Mesoscale (NAM), and retire the High-Resolution Window (HiresW) aside from the Guam domain which will remain. As an ensemble forecast system running to 60 h for the 00/06/12/18 UTC cycles, the RRFS Ensemble Forecast System (REFS) will fully retire the High-Resolution Ensemble Forecast (HREF) system. a) Deterministic forecast details The deterministic RRFS runs over a full North America (NA) domain at 3 km grid spacing, and provides subset grid output at 3 km grid spacing for the contiguous United States (CONUS) and Alaska (AK), and at 2.5 km grid spacing for Hawaii (HI) and Puerto Rico (PR). It also provides North America output at 13 km grid spacing. The RRFS also provides output from a separate relocatable 1.5 km RRFS fire weather run, with output provided over a 5 x 5-degree rotated latitude longitude region. Deterministic RRFS output is organized as follows: Under rrfs/v1.0 rrfs.YYYYMMDD/CC/rrfs.tCCz.prslev.3km.fFFF.{conus|ak}.{grib2,gri b2.idx} rrfs.YYYYMMDD/CC/rrfs.tCCz.prslev.2p5km.fFFF.{hi|pr}.{grib2,grib 2.idx} rrfs.YYYYMMDD/CC/rrfs.tCCz.prslev.13km.fFFF.na.{grib2,grib2.idx} rrfs.YYYYMMDD/CC/rrfs.tCCz.2dfld.3km.fFFF.{conus|ak}.{grib2,grib 2.idx} rrfs.YYYYMMDD/CC/rrfs.tCCz.2dfld.2p5km.fFFF.{hi|pr}.{grib2,grib2 .idx} rrfs.YYYYMMDD/CC/rrfs.tCCz.2dfld.3km.subh.fFFF.{conus|ak}.{grib2 ,grib2.idx} rrfs.YYYYMMDD/CC/rrfs.tCCz.2dfld.2p5km.subh.fFFF.{hi|pr}.{grib2, grib2.idx} rrfs.YYYYMMDD/CC/rrfs.tCCz.2dfld.13km.fFFF.na.{grib2,grib2.idx} rrfs.YYYYMMDD/CC/rrfs.tCCz.2dfld_awipsubset.3km.fFFF.na.{grib2,g rib2.idx} firewx.YYYYMMDD/CC/rrfs.tCCz.prslev.1p5km.fFFF.firewx_lcc.{grib2 ,grib2.idx} firewx.YYYYMMDD/CC/rrfs.tCCz.2dfld.1p5km.fFFF.firewx_lcc.{grib2, grib2.idx} rrfs.YYYYMMDD/CC/bufrsnd.tCCz/bufr.*.YYYYMMDDCC rrfs.YYYYMMDD/CC/rrfs.tCCz.class1.bufr A full description of RRFS products including variables and encoding is available at: https://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/products/rrfs/ b) Ensemble forecast details The RRFS produces five ensemble forecast members running to 60 h for the 00/06/12/18 UTC cycles, over the same NA region as the deterministic RRFS. These members utilize different initial conditions, lateral boundary conditions, and model physics relative to the deterministic forecast to better cover the range of forecast possibilities. Ensemble RRFS output is organized as follows: Under rrfs/v1.0 rrfsens.YYYYMMDD/CC/m00#/rrfs.tCCz.m00#.prslevnomads.3km.fFFF.{c onus|ak}.{grib2,grib2.idx} rrfsens.YYYYMMDD/CC/m00#/rrfs.tCCz.m00#.2dfldnomads.3km.fFFF.{co nus|ak}.{grib2,grib2.idx} rrfsens.YYYYMMDD/CC/m00#/rrfs.tCCz.m00#.prslevnomads.2p5km.fFFF. {hi|pr}.{grib2,grib2.idx} rrfsens.YYYYMMDD/CC/m00#/rrfs.tCCz.m00#.2dfldnomads.2p5km.fFFF.{ hi|pr}.{grib2,grib2.idx} 2) REFS modeling system The REFS is an ensemble product generation system that combines the forecast output from the current and 6 h old cycles of RRFS deterministic (section 1a) and ensemble (section 1b) systems to generate ensemble products. For the Alaska and CONUS REFS domains, the HRRR provides two additional members (from current and 6 h old cycles). The REFS is a replacement for the High-Resolution Ensemble Forecast (HREF) system, and shares similarities with the HREF in terms of product types. REFS does differ from HREF in terms of membership, and produces products to 60 h, while HREF generates products to 48 h. Also, REFS generates products for all domains (CONUS, AK, HI, PR) for the 00/06/12/18 UTC cycles, while HREF generates products twice daily for non-CONUS domains (AK and PR domains at 06Z/18Z, and HI at 00Z/12Z). REFS ensemble product output is organized as follows under refs/v1.0: refs.YYYYMMDD/CC/ensprod/refs.tCCz.${type}.fFF.${dom}.{grib2,gri b2.idx} where dom is the domain (conus, ak, hi, pr) and where type is the product type listed and described below mean: simple ensemble mean sprd: ensemble spread pmmn: probability-matched mean lpmm: localized probability-matched mean avrg: a combination of the pmmn and mean fields prob: probabilistic output eas: ensemble agreement scale probabilistic output refs.YYYYMMDD/CC/ensprod/refs.tCCz.ffri.fFF.conus.{grib2,grib2.i dx} ffri: flash flood and recurrence interval exceedance probabilities (conus only) Detailed information about the file contents including variables and encoding is available at: https://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/products/refs/ 3) Changes to SBN/NOAAPORT Dissemination While the RRFS and REFS run hourly and produce output for each cycle available on NOMADS, only a subset will be disseminated across the Satellite Broadcast Network (SBN) and NOAAPORT due to bandwidth limitations. Below are the domains available for either the RRFS or REFS, the grid spacing, and WMO headers: Geographic Region Grid Spacing WMO Headers ----------------- ------------ ----------- AK (REFS) 3 km A*[A-Q]*## KWDB CONUS (REFS) 3 km Y*[A-Q]*## KWDB HI (REFS) 2.5 km H*[A-Q]*## KWDB PR (REFS) 2.5 km P*[A-Q]*## KWDB NA (RRFS) 3 km Y*A*## KWDA NA (RRFS) 13 km Y*H*## KWDA A detailed listing of RRFS and REFS WMO headers (by domain) to be added over the SBN/NOAAPORT can be found at: https://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/products/noaaport/ NCEP urges all users to ensure their decoders can handle changes in content order, changes in the scaling factor component within the product definition section (PDS) of the GRIB files, and volume changes. These elements may change with future NCEP model implementations. NCEP will make every attempt to alert users to these changes before implementation. Questions can be directed to: The Office of Modeling and Development RRFS Feedback rrfs.feedback@noaa.gov For questions about dataflow aspects of these implementations, please contact: Margaret Curtis NWS Central Operations HPC Dataflow Team Lead ncep.pmb.dataflow@noaa.gov National Service Change Notices are online at: www.weather.gov/notification/