EF0 tornado, Piedmont to Harriston, 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

4:02 PM EDT (20:02 UTC)

Lifted

4:09 PM EDT (20:09 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

2.6 miles (4.2 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$150,000

Crop damage

$100,000

County

Augusta County

Touchdown point

38.221, -78.877

Lift-off point

38.209, -78.832

Record number

2008061402-01

9 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 87 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.

A supercell thunderstorm spawned two tornadoes during the|afternoon of Thursday, August 6th. The first tornado touched down|along Hatchery Road, near Harriston in Augusta County Virginia.|Numerous trees were uprooted and large branches snapped along the|tornado`s path as it moved to the east-southeast. Trees fell in|multiple directions in a generally convergent nature over a path|about two and a half miles long. Notably, many trees fell towards|the south while the parent storm`s motion was toward the east,|indicating a rotating vortex in contact with the ground. NWS 88D|Doppler Radar showed rotation directly over this area.||There was tree damage noted along Rockfish Road and crop damage|along Patterson Mill Road. The tornado then moved across US-340|East Side Highway where at least one tree fell on a vehicle, but|no injuries were reported as a result. It then moved into the|Jollett Springs Mobile Home Park, where several trees were|uprooted, and one snapped. At least one mobile home had damage to|its facade when an awning blew off, as shown by a picture taken by|local broadcast media.||Sporadic straight-line tree damage was noted north and east of this|point, and although KLWX WSR-88D continued to show rotation several|thousand feet above ground level, no discernible tornadic damage was|noted east of the mobile home park from this tornado.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

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.

Staunton/Shenandoah (SHD), 7 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Sterling radar (KLWX), 146 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:03 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.