EF0 tornado, Kimball, Virginia, May 30, 2025

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 30, 2025

Touchdown

6:06 PM EDT (22:06 UTC)

Lifted

6:08 PM EDT (22:08 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.8 miles (1.3 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Page County

Touchdown point

38.693, -78.440

Lift-off point

38.698, -78.426

Record number

2505301606-01

5 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LWX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 75 mph.

• 3 large trees uprooted, several large branches snapped higher up in trees
• Several large branches snapped off several trees, farmer saw the tornado as it crossed. Also destroyed garden fence.
• Moderate tree uprooted. Another snapped. Also described wall of white with heavy rain and wind.
• 1 small shed/barn unroofed and destroyed. Wind direction evident in hay as well. Tables blown considerable distance. All to the ENE with storm direction. Eyewitness saw non-rotating scud followed by wall of white heavy rain with wind.

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

Scattered severe thunderstorms (a mix of lines and supercells) produced large hail, damaging wind gusts, and tornadoes in the vicinity of a front draped across the Mid-Atlantic.

During the evening of Friday May 30th, a rotating thunderstorm that |was noted on NWS weather radar KLWX moved east-northeast across the |Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. At 6:06 PM EDT, the rotation tightened,|and a tornado touched down in the Luray Mobile Homes community on Luray |Mobile Homes Lane. The tornado created a narrow path of damage east |northeast through the community and into the woods. Three large trees|were uprooted and several large branches were snapped from the middle|to upper reaches of the trees. Damage was in a convergent pattern. A |few vehicles were damaged by falling branches.||The tornado then crossed farming fields until it came to the property adjacent |to where Kimball Road intersects with Springfield Road. The resident there |provided his eyewitness account of seeing the rotating tornado and debris. |On that property, several large branches and sections of trees were snapped |by the tornado as it crossed. Also, a gardening fence was destroyed.||After crossing Kimball Road, a downdraft descended from the parent storm,|ending the tornadic circulation. That downdraft continued to produce damage|as it pushed to the east-northeast. Off Springfield and Outpost Roads, four more |trees were felled, large branches were snapped, and a large shed was |unroofed and destroyed.||By the time the storm reached Elgin Drive, no further damage was seen.

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

16 minutes of warning. NWS LWX issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:50 UTC, 16 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:37 UTC and running to 00:00 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 19:50 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), 88 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:03 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 2025 tornado in VirginiaEvery tornado in Virginia since 1950Warnings in force in Virginia nowThe forecast where you are

4 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.