DATE: Friday, May 30, 1997                  TAG: 9705300692

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   42 lines

N.C. TORNADOES FEWER THUS FAR THIS YEAR THERE'S BEEN VILE WEATHER APLENTY, NOT MANY FEARSOME FUNNEL CLOUDS.

In the spring Dan Bartholf's thoughts grimly turn to tornadoes . . . to trees down, to power lines arcing and crackling, to homes ripped to kindling and the sad sorting out of the wounded and the dead.

Bartholf is a severe weather coordinator for the National Weather Service station at Newport, N.C., just west of Morehead City on U.S. 70.

He's the meteorologist who sends timely weather warnings to storm-threatened communities in eastern North Carolina.

And by June 1 in most years, Bartholf and his colleagues have usually sent out a lot of tornado alerts to many coastal counties.

``So far, this spring hasn't been too bad,'' Bartolph said this week.

Sure, in 1997 there's been vile weather a-plenty and hurricanes yet to come, Bartholf explained, but so far few of the fearsome funnel clouds that can destroy a whole town in a few terrible moments have come this way.

So far this year there have been a lot of Albemarle thunderstorms, Bartholf said, but few funnel clouds reported.

The weather has been generally cool, he said, and this literally puts a cold compress on tornadoes.

Only one funnel cloud was reported in eastern North Carolina, in April. Rescue Squad personnel said they watched a tornado drop out of a thunderstorm in Jones County near Maysville on April 21.

In May, wind-whipped hail accompanied violent thunderstorms that swept the mid-coast counties.

``But no tornadoes,'' said Bartholf.

During April 1996, he added, 16 eastern North Carolina tornadoes were logged onto Weather Service instruments.

Most of the ``tornadoes'' were recorded on April 15, 1996, and represented a single powerful weather system that moved across southeastern North Carolina, dropping writhing funnel clouds as it traveled northeast. Many of the tornado reports may have been the same funnel cloud, observers said.

And a waterspout churned up Albemarle Sound near Kill Devil Hills during a thunderstorm that moved across much of the Outer Banks. KEYWORDS: WEATHER

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