EF1 tornado, Addison to Vergennes, Vermont, July 18, 2022

1. EF065 to 85 mph

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

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

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

3. EF2111 to 135 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. EF3136 to 165 mph

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

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

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

6. EF5over 200 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

EF1

Date

July 18, 2022

Touchdown

6:50 PM EDT (22:50 UTC)

Lifted

6:52 PM EDT (22:52 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.9 miles (1.5 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$10,000

County

Addison County

Touchdown point

44.083, -73.307

Lift-off point

44.094, -73.297

Record number

2207181650-01

4 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BTV, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 80 mph.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

A unseasonably strong mid-level disturbance (shortwave) moved across a weakly unstable airmass during the evening of July 18th. Scattered showers and a temporary embedded thunderstorm or two developed behind the main rain shield and moved across VT. This particular cell had no history of thunder but enough of an updraft tapped the strong mid-level wind field above to produce a weak EF-1 tornado that lasted only a few minutes at most.

The tornado developed over a wooded area west of Vermont Route 22A|and tracked northeast across 22A where multiple trees were snapped|or uprooted with numerous large tree limbs removed from trees. The|tornado tracked across a cemetery where a large tree fell on a|neighboring fence. From there, the tornado tracked across a property|where it uprooted a large softwood tree before entering a field and|throwing large tree limbs 50 feet. The tornado then tracked across|another property significantly damaging a metal structure and caused|it to collapse in on itself. The tornado proceeded to damage a structure|on King Hill Road before crossing VT Route 17 East where it forcibly|bent a street sign. The tornado continued into several fields where|many more trees were uprooted or snapped.

A second tornado has been confirmed by public video northeast of where|the Addison tornado occurred at 6:50 PM EDT. Video shows damage to|softwood trees. Locations are estimated from video and radar.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:00 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 Burlington radar (KCXX), 48 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:50 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2022 tornado in VermontEvery tornado in Vermont since 1950Warnings in force in Vermont nowThe forecast where you are

4 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.