Tornadoes · United States · Virginia · 1996
F1 tornado, Belfast, Virginia, July 19, 1996
This F1 tornado ran 3.6 miles across Russell County on July 19, 1996, touching down at 6:00 PM EDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $200,000 of property damage.
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.
F040 to 72 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- F1
- Date
- July 19, 1996
- Touchdown
- 6:00 PM EDT (22:00 UTC)
- Path length
- 3.6 miles (5.8 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $200,000
- County
- Russell County
- Touchdown point
- 36.950, -81.870
- Lift-off point
- 36.950, -81.820
- Record number
- 529
What the Weather Service recorded
A tornado damaged an elementary school, fire department and a few homes. A double-wide mobile home and a couple of barns were destroyed. Numerous trees and powerlines were blown down.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The surface observations
Abingdon (VJI), 34 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:00 UTC |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Roanoke radar (KFCX), 140 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:58 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.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 1996 tornado in VirginiaEvery tornado in Virginia since 1950Warnings in force in Virginia nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of July 19, 1996
19 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 19 | 10:20 AM EDT | F2 | Clarion, PA | 10.0 | 100 | $50,000 | ||
| July 19 | 10:45 AM EDT | F2 | Jefferson, PA | 27.4 | 200 | 6 | $200,000 | |
| July 19 | 12:10 PM EDT | F1 | Blair, PA | 1.5 | 880 | |||
| July 19 | 12:10 PM EDT | F2 | Cambria, PA | 6.0 | 100 | |||
| July 19 | 1:30 PM EDT | F0 | Bedford, PA | 5.0 | 50 | |||
| July 19 | 2:00 PM EDT | F0 | Fulton, PA | 2.0 | 50 | |||
| July 19 | 2:30 PM EDT | F1 | Franklin, PA | 3.0 | 50 | |||
| July 19 | 2:35 PM EDT | F1 | Adams, PA | 1.0 | 150 | |||
| July 19 | 3:02 PM EDT | F0 | Washington, MD | 2.0 | 75 | $10,000 | ||
| July 19 | 3:12 PM EDT | F2 | Washington, MD | 2.0 | 125 | $400,000 | ||
| July 19 | 2:20 PM CDT | F1 | Frederick, MD to VA | 6.2 | 200 | $130,000 | ||
| July 19 | 3:25 PM EDT | F1 | Preston, WV | 0.2 | 50 | $10,000 | ||
| July 19 | 3:36 PM EDT | F1 | Montgomery, MD | 0.5 | 150 | |||
| July 19 | 3:42 PM EDT | F3 | Carroll, MD | 2.2 | 350 | 3 | $5.0 million | |
| July 19 | 2:48 PM CDT | F0 | Montgomery, MD to VA | 2.0 | 50 | $10,000 | ||
| July 19 | 3:55 PM EDT | F1 | Baltimore, MD | 1.2 | 50 | $70,000 | ||
| July 19 | 4:30 PM EDT | F0 | City of Baltimore, MD | 0.1 | 25 | |||
| July 19 | 3:04 PM MDT | F0 | Sherman, KS | 0.2 | 10 | |||
| July 19 | 7:40 PM CDT | F0 | Franklin, MO | 0.1 | 50 |
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.