Tornadoes · United States · Virginia · 2022

EF1 tornado, Baywood to Delhart, Virginia, July 5, 2022

From Baywood to Delhart, this EF1 tornado ran 2.2 miles across Grayson County on July 5, 2022, touching down at 4:05 PM EDT and reaching 150 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $20,000 of property damage.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  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.

The record

Rating
EF1
Date
July 5, 2022
Touchdown
4:05 PM EDT (20:05 UTC)
Lifted
4:12 PM EDT (20:12 UTC)
On the ground
7 minutes
Path length
2.2 miles (3.5 km)
Path width
150 yards (137 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$20,000
County
Grayson County
Touchdown point
36.610, -81.010
Lift-off point
36.590, -80.980
Record number
2207051405-01

What the Weather Service recorded

A moist and destabilizing airmass existed ahead of an upper level storm system traveling across the periphery of a sprawling mid-summer ridge across the southern plains into the southeast U.S. This triggered multiple severe thunderstorms due to the modest shear and instability in place. One of these storms spawned a tornado in Grayson county.

The tornado touched down in the Baywood community near the |intersection of Cross Roads Drive and Old Baywood Road where it |snapped a mature hardwood tree mid-trunk. A swirling pattern was |also noted in a nearby grass field. The tornado proceeded |southeast while intermittently snapping or uprooting multiple |hardwood and softwood trees along Greenwich and Delhart Roads. |The tornado then weakened and dissipated just to the southeast |of Delhart Road.

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

The warnings

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
20:25 UTC20:51 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningRNK

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 forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:59 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 air that afternoon

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.

Greensboro/Hi Pt, NC (KGSO), 12:00Z

8.1 hours before the tornado, 114 km from the path. July 5, 2022.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Greensboro/Hi Pt, NC at 12:00Z on 2022-07-05Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 382 joules per kilogram, CIN -66, lifted condensation level 638 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Greensboro/Hi Pt, NC at 12:00Z on 2022-07-05The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 25 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 16 knots.1939Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
382 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-66 J/kg
Surface CAPE
606 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
638 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
16 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
7 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
25 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
47 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Roanoke radar (KFCX), 80 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:04 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.

What was reported nearby

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

Time (UTC)ReportWhereCountyRemark
20:05 UTCTORNADO0.2 Se BaywoodGrayson, VACORRECTS PREVIOUS TSTM WND DMG REPORT FROM BAYWOOD. SEVERAL TREES DOWN IN THE BAYWOOD AREA. ESTIMATED PEAK WIND 95 MPH. PATH LENGTH 2.2 MILES. PATH WIDTH 150 YARDS. END POINT 2.7 SE BAYWOOD AT 4:12 PM.
20:16 UTCTSTM WND DMG3 Wsw WoodlawnCarroll, VATREES DOWN. LIMBS DAMAGED.
20:20 UTCTSTM WND DMGBaywoodGrayson, VASEVERAL TREES DOWN IN THE BAYWOOD AREA.
20:25 UTCTSTM WND DMG1 Se Galax CityCarroll, VAA FEW TREES DOWN ON THE SOUTHEAST SIDE OF GALAX.
20:30 UTCTSTM WND DMG2 Sw WoodlawnCarroll, VATREE DOWN ON CRANBERRY LANE.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2022 tornado in VirginiaEvery tornado in Virginia since 1950Warnings in force in Virginia nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of July 5, 2022

6 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
July 53:55 PM EDTEF0Lancaster, VA11.575$15,000
July 55:31 PM EDTEF1Prince George's, MD0.8125$250,000
July 55:55 PM EDTUnratedAnne Arundel, MD0.150
July 55:37 PM CDTEF0Emmet, IA1.680$1,000
July 58:44 PM CDTUnratedBuchanan, IA1.420
July 59:00 PM CDTUnratedBuchanan, IA0.720

What this means

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.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.