EF0 tornado, Cordova to Rixeyville, Virginia, May 26, 2024

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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 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

EF0

Date

May 26, 2024

Touchdown

9:27 PM EDT (01:27 UTC)

Lifted

9:35 PM EDT (01:35 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

4.8 miles (7.6 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

5

Property damage

$250,000

County

Culpeper County

Touchdown point

38.559, -78.064

Lift-off point

38.581, -77.980

Record number

2405261927-01

10 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 95 mph.

• 1 uproot 1 snapped. Convergent.
• Several trees snapped and topped.
• Several trees uprooted and snapped
• Large limb snapped beech tree 2 foot diameter branch. Bamboo in area snapped down too.

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

A large thunderstorm complex resulted in numerous instances of damaging winds over much of the Mid-Atlantic during the evening hours. A tornado was confirmed to have touched down in portions of north-central Virginia.

The National Weather Service conducted a ground survey of storm damage in the Rixeyville area that occurred on Sunday night, May 26, 2024. NWS Doppler Weather Radar in Sterling, Virginia showed a rotating severe thunderstorm that developed a tornado. Radar also showed a tornado damage signature due to lofted debris from the tornado as it was occurring. The tornado touched down along VA-714 Dunkard Church|Road, a third of a mile west of VA-729 Eggbornsville Road in rural, northwest Culpeper County. Several trees were snapped and uprooted in multiple directions. The tornado proceeded east-northeast and crossed VA-729 Eggbornsville Road. In this area, two dozen trees were noted to be snapped and uprooted in multiple directions. The|tornado passed over several homes and a church, but no structural damage was noted to these. The winds picked up and overturned a large shed with five occupants; these people were injured when the shed overturned due to the strong winds. Another smaller shed was also overturned. A resident reported seeing the funnel touch down|to the west of the road. A drone video showed a path of damage that was|approximately 100 yards wide.||The tornado continued east-northeast, snapping and uprooting at least a dozen large trees along VA-629 Settle School Road as it traversed a stretch of that road between Tolivers Forest Lane and Spring Hollow Lane. Several trees were snapped down as it crossed VA-632 Dutch Hollow Road. Tree damage continued to be in multiple|directions, including opposite the storm motion. The tornado proceeded another two miles, but did not cross another road until the final property where damage was noted. In the 9000 block of VA-640 Monumental Mills Road, a two foot diameter branch of a large beech tree was snapped off, along with smaller tree damage from a|southeast wind. That was the last damage noted, and there was no damage seen just east along VA-229 Rixeyville Road.

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

13 minutes of warning. NWS LWX issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:14 UTC, 13 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:45 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 01:07 UTC and running to 02:35 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. The outlook in force was issued at 00:57 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), 65 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:27 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

69 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 70 of them

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.