EF1 tornado, Burr Hill, 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

8:17 AM EDT (12:17 UTC)

Lifted

8:18 AM EDT (12:18 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.9 miles (1.4 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Orange County

Touchdown point

38.327, -77.903

Lift-off point

38.339, -77.898

Record number

1705050617-01

Low pressure was located across the Tennessee Valley while a strong low level jet transported moisture into the Mid-Atlantic. Showers and thunderstorms developed across Virginia and the unstable atmosphere caused a few thunderstorms to become severe.

The National Weather Service Baltimore/Washington Weather Forecast located in Sterling, Virginia, has confirmed a tornado on May 5, 2017, near Bledsoe Corner in Orange County Virginia, which is about 11 miles southeast of Culpeper. Damage began on a property in the 27000 block of Old Musterfield Lane, where about a dozen large pine, maple, and cedar trees were snapped and uprooted in multiple directions in a convergent pattern. A stone wall was blown over, and some smaller objects were carried hundreds of yards. The tornado proceeded northeast over woods surrounding Cooke Lane where dozens of large trees were snapped and uprooted in multiple directions, where a home sustained siding and minor roofing damage from the wind. Several other homes and structures had damage from falling trees and tree limbs. The |tornado continued northeast through the woods until it came upon a cinder block garage. The wind entered the structure, lifted the roof off, and knocked down most of the walls. Debris was carried across Musterfield Road into a field. A few snapped trees were noted at the far end of the field. That was the last noted damage.||The National Weather Service would like to thank the residents who reported the damage and helped survey the area; along with the County of Orange Department of Fire and EMS, and the Virginia Department of Emergency Management for coordination.

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 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.

Orange/Orange Co (OMH), 16 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Sterling radar (KLWX), 80 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 12:16 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.