EF1 tornado, Cowan to Belspring, Virginia, October 23, 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

October 23, 2017

Touchdown

6:33 PM EDT (22:33 UTC)

Lifted

6:35 PM EDT (22:35 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.3 miles (2.2 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$500,000

County

Pulaski County

Touchdown point

37.176, -80.610

Lift-off point

37.192, -80.597

Record number

1710231633-01

13 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 100 mph.

• Dozens of mainly hardwood trees snapped or uprooted near right edge of path and mainly blown to north.
• Scattered trees uprooted and large limbs broken. Some blown north, others more west. last of any concentrated damage.
• Very large trees also uprooted. One on a house, shed and car
• Several large pine trees snapped and blown to south on far left edge of damage path on property of Blue Ridge Christian Camp.

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

An upper level storm system moving toward the region from the south would interact with a closed upper level low moving through the Tennessee Valley. At the surface, a fast moving cold front moved into the region where a highly sheared environment was in place. These conditions triggered multiple severe thunderstorms and a two tornadoes in southwest Virginia.

A tornado touched down as an EF1 at 5:33PM (LST) just west of Belspring Road and traveled 1.3 miles before crossing the New River along Depot Road into Montgomery County at approximately 5:35PM. The tornado would continue almost two more miles before lifting near McCoy at 5:39PM. The heaviest damage was to a residence that had an unattached garage/workshop that was torn apart. Debris from this structure fell over onto two nearby vehicles and was also thrown into the two story home which suffered considerable damage. Many other homes, mainly along Belspring and Depot Roads, received some minor structural damage. Hundreds of trees were snapped or knocked down. The tornado reached it's maximum width of 300 yards near the river and consistently displayed EF1 (86-110 MPH) damage through its lifespan.

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 21:40 UTC and running to 01:04 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 19:42 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), 34 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:34 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

14 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.