EF2 tornado, Goode to Coleman Falls, Virginia, May 27, 2022

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 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

May 27, 2022

Touchdown

7:24 AM EDT (11:24 UTC)

Lifted

7:36 AM EDT (11:36 UTC)

On the ground

12 minutes

Path length

6.3 miles (10.1 km)

Path width

330 yards (302 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

3

Property damage

$925,000

County

Bedford County

Touchdown point

37.378, -79.365

Lift-off point

37.460, -79.320

Record number

2205270524-01

24 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS RNK, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 135 mph.

• Western edge of damage pointing ENE.
• Eastern point off 221. Mixture of hard and softwood trees snapped and uprooted. Picture looking S side of road.
• Numerous small trees uprooted. On East side of tornado.
• Eastern edge of circulation. Some shingles and guttering blown off home.

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

A strong cold front, in advance of a slow moving upper level low pressure system, brought multiple rounds of severe storms to southwest Virginia. With increasing instability and high low level shear, these storms produced damaging winds, hail and two tornadoes. While most of the severe weather occurred during the morning hours of the 27th, a second round of storms produced damaging winds during the afternoon.

An EF-2 tornado with max winds of 135 mph touchdown 0.4 miles southeast of Norwood before heading north northeast toward U.S Highway 221. The tornado crossed Bethany Church Road and Langford Lane where two mobile homes were destroyed. The tornado then continued northeast snapping and uprooting trees just west of the Ivy Hill Golf Course. Additional tree damage was noted on the western slopes of Fleming Mountain along Rocky Mountain Road. In total, 15 homes were damaged along with 35 structures including sheds, outbuildings, and garages. Three injuries were reported with zero fatalities. The length of the tornado track was estimated at 6.25 miles, and the maximum width was approximately 330 yards.

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

31 minutes of warning. NWS RNK issued a tornado warning for this county at 10:53 UTC, 31 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 11:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 10:35 UTC and running to 15:17 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 05:56 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), 93 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 11:23 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 2022 tornado in VirginiaEvery tornado in Virginia since 1950Warnings in force in Virginia nowThe forecast where you are

12 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.