Tornadoes · United States · Maryland · 1979

F0 tornado, Washington County, Maryland, September 5, 1979

This F0 tornado ran 0.3 miles across Washington County on September 5, 1979, touching down at 5:30 PM EDT and reaching 10 yards wide. It killed nobody.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  1. F040 to 72 mphthis tornado

    Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

  2. F173 to 112 mph

    Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

  3. F2113 to 157 mph

    Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

  4. F3158 to 206 mph

    Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

  5. F4207 to 260 mph

    Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

  6. F5261 to 318 mph

    Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

  7. Unrated

    The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

The record

Rating
F0
Date
September 5, 1979
Touchdown
5:30 PM EDT (21:30 UTC)
Path length
0.3 miles (0.5 km)
Path width
10 yards (9 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Washington County
Touchdown point
39.650, -77.930
Record number
742

The air that afternoon

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

Washington/Dulle, VA (KIAD), 12:00Z

9.5 hours before the tornado, 90 km from the path. September 5, 1979.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Washington/Dulle, VA at 12:00Z on 1979-09-05Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 667 joules per kilogram, CIN -3, lifted condensation level 490 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Washington/Dulle, VA at 12:00Z on 1979-09-05The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 76 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 14 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
667 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-3 J/kg
Surface CAPE
456 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
490 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
14 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
17 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
76 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
82 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Washington/Dulle, VA (KIAD), 00:00Z

2.5 hours after it, 90 km from the path. September 6, 1979.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Washington/Dulle, VA at 00:00Z on 1979-09-06Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 46 joules per kilogram, CIN -8, lifted condensation level 646 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Washington/Dulle, VA at 00:00Z on 1979-09-06The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 275 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 51 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
46 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-8 J/kg
Surface CAPE
120 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
646 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
51 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
34 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
275 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
616 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.3
0-3 km lapse rate
4.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1979 tornado in MarylandEvery tornado in Maryland since 1950Warnings in force in Maryland nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of September 5, 1979

18 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
September 51:00 PM EDTF1Carroll, MD0.517$500 to $5,000
September 52:55 PM EDTF1Anne Arundel, MD2.5501$5,000 to $50,000
September 53:00 PM EDTF2Baltimore, MD0.520$50,000 to $500,000
September 55:00 PM EDTF3City of Newport News, VA2.5502$500,000 to $5 million
September 55:20 PM EDTF2City of Hampton, VA0.5309$50,000 to $500,000
September 55:30 PM EDTF1Gloucester, VA0.520$5,000 to $50,000
September 56:15 PM EDTF2King George, VA2.040$50,000 to $500,000
September 56:15 PM EDTF1Stafford, VA2.030$5,000 to $50,000
September 56:30 PM EDTF1Saint Mary's, MD17.850$5,000 to $50,000
September 57:00 PM EDTF3Fairfax, VA17.930016$500,000 to $5 million
September 57:15 PM EDTF1Calvert, MD0.5301$50,000 to $500,000
September 57:30 PM EDTF2Loudoun, VA0.5502$50,000 to $500,000
September 57:45 PM EDTF2Loudoun, VA0.530$50,000 to $500,000
September 58:30 PM EDTF0Charles, MD0.217$5,000 to $50,000
September 59:45 PM EDTF2New Castle, DE2.52005$50,000 to $500,000
September 510:30 PM EDTF2Chester, PA4.16314$500,000 to $5 million
September 511:15 PM EDTF2Berks, PA1.030$50,000 to $500,000
September 512:45 AM CDTF1Page, IA0.330$5,000 to $50,000

What this means

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.