EF1 tornado, Glendia to Ruby, 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

7:49 PM EDT (23:49 UTC)

Lifted

8:01 PM EDT (00:01 UTC)

On the ground

12 minutes

Path length

6.9 miles (11.1 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$250,000

County

Stafford County

Touchdown point

38.410, -77.513

Lift-off point

38.488, -77.593

Record number

2408081749-01

11 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LWX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 88 mph.

• Large tree branch sheared out of the top of the tree. Looks twisted and mangled before it broke off. Tree did show signs of disease. No other visble damage in the area.
• Large softwood tree snapped and uprooted blocking Mount Olive Road.
• Tree snapped and uprooted along Mount Olive Road near Saratoga Homes Subdivision.
• 2 small trees sheared off with one large trunk snapped and twisted along the 100 block of Stately Ave in Poplar Manor Subdivision.

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

The remnants of Tropical Cyclone Debby spawned a few tornadoes in northern Virginia and eastern West Virginia.

National Weather Service Baltimore/Washington Weather Forecast Office staff conducted a ground survey of storm damage in western Stafford County that occurred on Thursday evening, August 8, 2024. NWS Doppler Radar in Sterling, Virginia showed a rotating severe thunderstorm that produced a tornado just before 8pm August 8, 2024.||The tornado touched down one mile northwest of Glendie, Virginia in the vicinity of Kellogg Mill Road and Mt. Olive Road around 7:49 PM EDT. Multiple large trees were snapped at the trunk and uprooted, leading to the closure of Mt. Olive Road for a period of time Thursday evening. The tornado continued northwest toward the Saratoga Woods and Manor Woods Estates subdivision. Multiple medium to large trees were uprooted, branches sheared off, or otherwise damaged along Arden Lane and Mt. Olive Road.||The tornado traveled toward the Poplar Manor subdivision along Stony Hill Road. One tree was snapped and uprooted along Stately Avenue with another smaller tree and branches sheared off toward the back end of Poplar Avenue. This damage coincides with tightening rotation that was indicated on the KLWX radar around 7:55 PM EDT.||By 7:57 PM, radar picked up a tornado debris signature as the storm moved northwest along Potomac Run toward Hartwood Road. Several medium to large trees were uprooted, branches sheared off, or otherwise damaged between the 1600 block of Hartwood Road and Park Farm Lane. One tree fell onto a structure in this location, but no other structural damage nor casualties were reported.||The tornado continued to strengthen as it continued north-northwest toward the Sullivan Estates subdivision a half mile west of Heflin, VA. This is where the most noteworthy damage as found which coincides with the strongest tornado debris signature on radar between 7:58 PM EDT and 8:00 PM EDT. Several medium to large trees were uprooted, branches sheared off, or otherwise damaged in this area. The worst damage was back along the 300 block of Kingdom Drive where multiple large trees were either snapped mid way or uprooted in a convergent pattern, including one tree that fell onto a residence and damaged both the roof and garage. Luckily no injuries were reported although damage was observed to both the roof and garage of the structure.||Additional small to medium sized trees were uprooted or snapped along the 100 block of Castlebar and Ireland Drive. This is where the tornado debris signature weakened. The tornado lifted near the intersection of Castlebar Drive and Ireland Drive.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:37 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), 59 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:49 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.