EF0 tornado, Earlysville, Virginia, August 6, 2020

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mph

   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

EF0

Date

August 6, 2020

Touchdown

4:50 PM EDT (20:50 UTC)

Lifted

4:51 PM EDT (20:51 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.2 miles (0.3 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Albemarle County

Touchdown point

38.162, -78.491

Lift-off point

38.162, -78.488

Record number

2008061450-01

5 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LWX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 80 mph.

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

A slow-moving warm front sparked multiple rounds of isolated severe thunderstorms across the Middle Atlantic on Thursday, August 6th, 2020. The first moved through the greater DC metro area during the early morning hours. The second was a supercell that moved across the southern Shenandoah River Valley and central Virginia Piedmont, causing significant damage and unusually large hail for so late in the season. A final (third) round of thunderstorms affected northern Virginia with isolated wind damage during the mid to late evening hours.

The second of two tornadoes spawned by a supercell thunderstorm|on the afternoon of August 6th occurred over Broadus Wood|Elementary School on VA-663 Buck Mountain Road in Earlysville,|Virginia. It was on the ground only briefly, uprooting several|trees, and snapping two, in a convergent manner over a brief path|on and adjacent to the elementary school grounds. While there was|fencing damage on the school grounds, no damage was noted to the|school building.||This tornado was embedded in a larger area of intense straight-|line winds that produced numerous instances of downed trees across|Free Union, Earlysville and Hollymead just northwest of Albemarle|County Airport. NWS 88D Doppler Radar showed persistent rotation|in this area, but the only evidence of tornadic damage on the|ground was over this brief path.

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

16 minutes of warning. NWS LWX issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:34 UTC, 16 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:00 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. The outlook in force was issued at 19:55 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.

Charlottesville (CHO), 4 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Sterling radar (KLWX), 126 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:47 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 2020 tornado in VirginiaEvery tornado in Virginia since 1950Warnings in force in Virginia nowThe forecast where you are

1 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.