EF1 tornado, Reese Shop, 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 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

May 27, 2022

Touchdown

9:00 AM EDT (13:00 UTC)

Lifted

9:01 AM EDT (13:01 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.1 km)

Path width

60 yards (55 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Charlotte County

Touchdown point

36.999, -78.710

Lift-off point

37.000, -78.710

Record number

2205270700-01

4 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.

• Photo looking southward. Hard and softwood trees snapped and uprooted. Center point. Tree landed on corner of house, causing significant damage to 20%of the roof and bedroom.
• Winds associated with the tornado resulted in several broken windows with the home
• Trees snapped and uprooted on a convergent path toward NE direction of movement. Photo near western edge of circulation. Estimated path width 60 yd.
• Mostly softwoods were uprooted just in the other side of Green View Rd. Power lines were blown down. End of tornado

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.

A National Weather Service survey team inspected storm damage along the western end of Green View Road approximately 1.6 miles south southwest of Chandlers Fork and 3.8 miles north of Randolph. The team concluded that the damage was from an EF-1 tornado with maximum wind gusts around 95 mph. The tornado briefly touched down and primarily affected one private residence along Green View Road. Significant roof damage along with glass doors and windows were broken on the home. A few trees and power lines were also damaged along Green View Road before the tornado lifted.

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 10:35 UTC and running to 16:11 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 12:47 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), 139 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 13:00 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.