F1 tornado, Whites Ferry to Dawsonville, Maryland, July 19, 1996

1. F040 to 72 mph

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

2. F173 to 112 mphthis tornado

   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.

Rating

F1

Date

July 19, 1996

Touchdown

3:36 PM EDT (19:36 UTC)

Path length

0.5 miles (0.8 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Montgomery County

Touchdown point

39.230, -77.470

Lift-off point

39.230, -77.470

Record number

615

A short-lived weak tornado briefly touched down approximately 2 miles north of Whites Ferry. Numerous trees were knocked down on a small island (in the Maryland portion) of the Potomac River. More trees were knocked down along the C&O Canal and along Whites Ferry Road. This tornado was associated with the parent thunderstorm that produced earlier damage in southern Washington and Frederick Counties.

A weak tornado, captured on videotape along the Potomac River, and assumed to originate in Seneca Creek State Park (Montgomery Co MD) 4 miles south of Dawsonville, crossed the Potomac River into extreme eastern Loudoun Co before dissipating just southeast of the Lowes Island Golf Club. One tree was uprooted, and several others damaged, along the short track.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

16 minutes of warning. NWS LWX issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:20 UTC, 16 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:55 UTC.

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 06:17 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

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.

The live radar over the trackEvery 1996 tornado in MarylandEvery tornado in Maryland since 1950Warnings in force in Maryland nowThe forecast where you are

19 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.

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