EF1 tornado, Ararat, 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF1

Date

February 24, 2016

Touchdown

12:45 PM EST (17:45 UTC)

Lifted

12:47 PM EST (17:47 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.4 miles (2.3 km)

Path width

800 yards (732 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$205,000

Crop damage

$140,000

County

Patrick County

Touchdown point

36.599, -80.504

Lift-off point

36.616, -80.491

Record number

1602241145-01

8 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS RNK, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 107 mph.

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.

This tornado occurred in the Ararat area of Patrick County. The tornado touched down near the end of epperson lane and continued across Ararat Highway where about a half-dozen homes had minor roof damage. The tornado proceeded across pond road where a mobile home was blown off its foundation and further tree damage occurred. ||The tornado was on the ground for less than 2 miles but at its peak was half a mile wide. Patrick County Emergency Management said that a total of 22 homes were damaged and one completely destroyed. Several outbuildings and hundreds of trees were blown down by the storm. No injuries were reported.

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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:35 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), 50 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:43 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.