EF0 tornado, Bolton to Hansonville, Virginia, May 24, 2011

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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 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

EF0

Date

May 24, 2011

Touchdown

4:55 PM EDT (20:55 UTC)

Lifted

4:58 PM EDT (20:58 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

4.2 miles (6.8 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$30,000

County

Russell County

Touchdown point

36.800, -82.220

Lift-off point

36.821, -82.148

Record number

1105241455-01

A short wave trough moving through the Mid Mississippi and Lower Ohio Valley produced strong convection across Kentucky and Northern Middle Tennessee early in the day. The convection organized into a Mesoscale Convective System as it moved into the unstable atmosphere across Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee. Severe convection continued to form well into the afternoon in the vicinity of a west through east outflow boundary in place across extreme Southwest Virginia.

An EF-0 tornado touched down near the Bolton area and moved northeast to near Hansonville, Virginia, before lifting. Several trees were downed in the path of the tornado.

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

8 minutes of warning. NWS MRX issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:47 UTC, 8 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:30 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 18:00 UTC and running to 00:00 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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:44 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 Knoxville radar (KMRX), 130 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:53 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

47 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.