EF2 tornado, High Rock to Clarkton, Virginia, April 27, 2011

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 mph

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

3. EF2111 to 135 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

April 27, 2011

Touchdown

8:38 PM EDT (00:38 UTC)

Lifted

9:08 PM EDT (01:08 UTC)

On the ground

30 minutes

Path length

18.1 miles (29.1 km)

Path width

350 yards (320 m)

Deaths

1

Injuries

7

County

Halifax County

Touchdown point

36.782, -79.094

Lift-off point

36.980, -78.879

Record number

1104271838-01

Widespread severe weather impacted the area. A strong upper level trough approaching from the west provided strong winds aloft, and a weak upper level low pressure system moved across during the afternoon hours setting off scattered thunderstorms. These storms quickly became severe. In total, there were 6 tornadoes with numerous reports of damaging winds and large hail. Heavy rainfall from these storms also caused scattered flash flooding.

The tornado, with winds estimated up to 125 MPH, formed from a supercell and initially touched down near High Rock Trail off Thompsons Store Road. It then moved northeast, causing most of the worst damage in the Liberty Road area. This includes one death and eight injuries in that region. Also in this area four mobile homes and a large camper trailer were destroyed. A little further along the track a roof sustained heavy damage, an outbuilding was destroyed and numerous trees were uprooted. The path became intermittent as the tornado moved northeast of Lennig Road, and it lifted just before reaching the Roanoke River in northern Halifax County. In total: four homes were destroyed, 14 sustained major damage and 6 had minor damage.

The deaths

1 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.

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

37 minutes of warning. NWS RNK issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:01 UTC, 37 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:15 UTC and running to 04:41 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:12 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 Roanoke radar (KFCX), 116 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:39 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 2011 tornado in VirginiaEvery tornado in Virginia since 1950Warnings in force in Virginia nowThe forecast where you are

209 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 210 of them

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.