EF1 tornado, Golansville to Ladysmith, Virginia, August 8, 2024

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 8, 2024

Touchdown

6:54 PM EDT (22:54 UTC)

Lifted

6:59 PM EDT (22:59 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

1.7 miles (2.8 km)

Path width

700 yards (640 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$200,000

County

Caroline County

Touchdown point

37.974, -77.521

Lift-off point

37.993, -77.541

Record number

2408081654-01

Tropical Cyclone Debby tracking northward from the Carolinas across western Virginia produced scattered severe thunderstorms with damaging winds and one tornado across portions of central and southeast Virginia.

Around 654 PM, a thunderstorm in a rain band associated with Tropical Depression Debby produced a short lived tornado that initially touched down near Cedar Fork Road about 1 mile west of Route 1 near Golansville. The tornado snapped and uprooted several pine trees in this location before entering a densely wooded forest to the north. About 6/10 of a mile to the northeast, the tornado entered the Lake Caroline Subdivision near the intersection of Senate Drive and Kennedy Cove. Numerous trees were snapped and uprooted. As the tornado continued to travel north northwest, it continued to knock down additional trees, with numerous houses along Loyalist Drive, American Drive, West Point Drive, Woodlyn Drive, Powder Horn Drive and Admiral Drive receiving roof and siding damage from trees falling on houses. In all, more than 30 houses were damaged from falling trees, and power lines were downed throughout the community. After crossing the west end of Lake Caroline, the tornado began to weaken with just a few more trees being knocked down along Lake Caroline Road and Waring Drive before dissipating.

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

8 minutes of warning. NWS AKQ issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:46 UTC, 8 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:09 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:38 UTC and running to 10:19 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 19:32 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 Sterling radar (KLWX), 110 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:54 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 2024 tornado in VirginiaEvery tornado in Virginia since 1950Warnings in force in Virginia nowThe forecast where you are

11 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.