EF3 tornado, Spring Mills to Hixburg, Virginia, February 24, 2016

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 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF3

Date

February 24, 2016

Touchdown

3:28 PM EST (20:28 UTC)

Lifted

3:44 PM EST (20:44 UTC)

On the ground

16 minutes

Path length

16.9 miles (27.2 km)

Path width

400 yards (366 m)

Deaths

1

Injuries

7

Property damage

$11 million

County

Appomattox County

Touchdown point

37.232, -78.858

Lift-off point

37.403, -78.648

Record number

1602241428-01

26 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS RNK, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF3. The highest wind the damage implies is 152 mph.

• foundation nailed straight to floor...no clamps...lowered expected values
• poor construction. home next door has much less damage.
• Lift up point noted by aerial photos

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

A strong surface low was located over Western TN in the morning. A wedge was in place over the region and expected to be eroded by a strong low level jet. Bulk shear of 60 knots and storm-relative Helicity in the 400-600 m**2/s**2 range provided the dynamics for this severe event. With this shear in place, thunderstorms developed mainly east of the Blue Ridge, but some were also seen in the New and Roanoke River Valleys. Reports of thunderstorm wind damage and large hail came in from multiple counties across Virginia and North Carolina. Also, two tornados (including a historic EF-3 in Appomattox County) occurred. This was the first EF-3 tornado in the month of February ever recorded in the NWS Blacksburg forecast area.

A tornado touched down just outside Appomattox county in Campbell county, then traveled 16 miles northeast across Appomattox county. At its peak, this tornado reached EF-3 intensity, which was the first EF-3 tornado or stronger in the month of February in the NWS Blacksburg forecast area. For Appomattox County, this was only the third tornado on record since 1950, and the only tornado rated EF-3 or higher.||The tornado passed just southeast of the town of Appomattox, impacting the community of Evergreen before lifting near Holiday Lake State Park. The fatality and all the injuries occurred in Evergreen, when the tornado was at its greatest intensity.||Thirty structures were completely destroyed and 160 others were damaged, mostly in the Evergreen area. There were also 7 injuries and 1 fatality from this tornado. Numerous trees were snapped and uprooted.

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.

13 minutes of warning. NWS RNK issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:15 UTC, 13 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 20:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:46 UTC and running to 22:15 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 20:02 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), 139 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:26 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 2016 tornado in VirginiaEvery tornado in Virginia since 1950Warnings in force in Virginia nowThe forecast where you are

25 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.