F1 tornado, Annex, Virginia, July 31, 1999

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 31, 1999

Touchdown

4:00 PM EDT (20:00 UTC)

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$10,000

County

Augusta County

Touchdown point

38.170, -78.980

Lift-off point

38.170, -78.980

Record number

563

Scattered thunderstorms developed over the Shenandoah Valley between 2:00 PM and 4:30 PM EDT. One storm moved across Clarke County and produced winds in excess of 55 MPH, downing trees in White Post. Two trees blocked Route 644. A second storm moved through Augusta County around 4:00 PM EDT and produced a short-lived tornado about 5 miles east-southeast of Staunton. The tornado was about 100 yards wide and stayed on the ground for only one tenth of a mile. A large perennial nursery was damaged by the twister. Windows were blown in on the northwest side of a greenhouse. A large barn roof was torn from its foundation and thrown 600 feet. One beam weighing 100 pounds was buried into the ground and the roof itself was rolled into a ball. In addition, several trees on the property were snapped or bent. The storm also produced three quarter inch diameter hail. Lightning from another thunderstorm ignited a forest fire west of Woodstock in Shenandoah County on the 31st.

Barn destroyed, greenhouse damaged, and trees snapped 5 miles East of Staunton

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:59 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 1999 tornado in VirginiaEvery tornado in Virginia since 1950Warnings in force in Virginia nowThe forecast where you are

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.