EF1 tornado, Marshalltown, Virginia, April 15, 2018

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

April 15, 2018

Touchdown

5:03 PM EDT (21:03 UTC)

Lifted

5:04 PM EDT (21:04 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.5 miles (0.8 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$124,000

County

Craig County

Touchdown point

37.535, -80.054

Lift-off point

37.541, -80.052

Record number

1804151503-01

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 88 mph.

• Picture facing back toward beginning of damage track.
• Numerous Bradford pear trees snapped or uprooted. All deflected 20 degrees left of storm motion.
• Numerous trees snapped and uprooted, some pointing toward southeast.

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

A strong cold front with a negatively-tilted upper level trough approached southwest Virginia. Plenty of wind shear with modest instability made conditions ripe for large hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes. The thunderstorms ahead of the cold front became strong enough to produce six tornadoes across portions of southwest Virginia. While the first tornado originally formed in Caswell County of North Carolina and crossed into Virginia, the other five all touched down in Virginia. These tornadoes caused significant damage within the cities of Danville and Lynchburg and within the town of Elon in Amherst County. It is the first time ever since storm data records began in 1950 that a tornado struck inside the city limits of Lynchburg.

A tornado briefly touched down just south of Hawkins Lane and headed northward at 4:03 PM EST. It crossed Hawkins Lane and Wild Cat Hollow Road before lifting at 4:04 PM EST. The tornado caused considerable damage to trees, homes, and outbuildings. Six homes had roof shingles and vinyl siding ripped off by the tornado. Several outbuildings and garages were destroyed. The tornado also flipped one truck upside down on to another damaged vehicle, and it also lofted small debris over 100 yards. The estimated maximum winds were 105 MPH.

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 19:07 UTC and running to 21:59 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:40 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), 60 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:01 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 2018 tornado in VirginiaEvery tornado in Virginia since 1950Warnings in force in Virginia nowThe forecast where you are

18 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.