EF1 tornado, Childress to Merrimac, Virginia, August 31, 2021

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

August 31, 2021

Touchdown

6:59 PM EDT (22:59 UTC)

Lifted

7:00 PM EDT (23:00 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.2 miles (0.4 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$3,000

County

Montgomery County

Touchdown point

37.197, -80.438

Lift-off point

37.200, -80.436

Record number

2108311659-01

7 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 93 mph.

• Portion of barn roof blown off.
• Clear divergent pattern in damage. Center of tornado moved directly through this location.
• Swing destroyed. Starting point of tornado.

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

Storms and tornadoes occurred on the last day of August thanks to the atmospheric conditions provided by the remnants of Hurricane Ida moving over the Mid-Atlantic.

A tornado touched down near the intersection of Stanley Road and Dove Drive,|damaging a barn and uprooting several trees. This tornado traveled toward the north and snapped several hardwood trees just south of interstate 81 before lifting near Tyler Road. Peak winds reached 90-95 MPH.

A tornado touched down on Price Mountain near Merrimac Road. This tornado uprooted and snapped several trees and destroyed a swing. The tornado quickly lifted just to northeast of its touchdown point. Peak winds are estimated to have reached 90-95 MPH.

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

20 minutes of warning. NWS RNK issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:39 UTC, 20 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:15 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 19:48 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.

Virginia Tech Airport (BCB), 3 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Roanoke radar (KFCX), 24 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:57 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 2021 tornado in VirginiaEvery tornado in Virginia since 1950Warnings in force in Virginia nowThe forecast where you are

4 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.