EF1 tornado, Rawlings to Church Rd, Virginia, May 5, 2017

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

May 5, 2017

Touchdown

6:50 AM EDT (10:50 UTC)

Lifted

6:55 AM EDT (10:55 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

2.4 miles (3.9 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$450,000

Crop damage

$40,000

Counties

Dinwiddie and Brunswick counties

Touchdown point

36.972, -77.777

Lift-off point

37.005, -77.765

Record number

1705050450-01

22 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS AKQ, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 90 mph.

• Tree down. small outbuilding overturned.
• Trees down and snapped off. Greenhouse damaged.
• Numerous trees down. Small barn collapsed.
• Sheet metal roofing torn off barns/outbuildings.

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

Scattered severe thunderstorms in advance of low pressure and its associated cold front produced damaging winds and six tornadoes across portions of central and eastern Virginia.

The tornado first touched down in far northern Brunswick county, northwest of Rawlings off Baskerville Mill Road. The tornado uprooted trees before continuing north northeast into Dinwiddie county along Old White Oak Road.

Tornado tracked from Brunswick county into Dinwiddie county. The tornado continued north northeast into Dinwiddie county along Old White Oak Road. It crossed Old White Oak road near Route 40, then continued north northeast before a visible damage path |ended just north of Lew Jones Road. Numerous trees were uprooted or sheared off, and there was significant damage to a few homes and one large shed was destroyed. Also, there was extensive crop damage, as well as damage to farm equipment and land damage.

Information obtained from the Dinwiddie county emergency manager and the Virginia Department of Forestry suggests a tornado touched down in timberland in northern Dinwiddie county. The tornado first touched down north of Route 460, to the west northwest of Sutherland, then tracked north northeast, ending near Namozine Road.|Extensive damage to trees occurred along the path, with no damage to structures.

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

1 minute of warning. NWS AKQ issued a tornado warning for this county at 10:49 UTC, 1 minute before the tornado touched down, in force until 11:00 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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:30 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.

Blackstone (BKT), 19 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Norfolk radar (KAKQ), 68 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 10:48 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 2017 tornado in VirginiaEvery tornado in Virginia since 1950Warnings in force in Virginia nowThe forecast where you are

12 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.