Tornadoes · United States · West Virginia · 1979

F0 tornado, Lincoln County, West Virginia, August 8, 1979

This F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Lincoln County on August 8, 1979, touching down at 6:00 PM EDT and reaching 10 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $500 to $5,000 of property damage.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  1. F040 to 72 mphthis tornado

    Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

  2. F173 to 112 mph

    Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

  3. F2113 to 157 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. F3158 to 206 mph

    Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

  5. F4207 to 260 mph

    Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

  6. F5261 to 318 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.

The record

Rating
F0
Date
August 8, 1979
Touchdown
6:00 PM EDT (22:00 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
10 yards (9 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$500 to $5,000
County
Lincoln County
Touchdown point
38.230, -81.930
Record number
618

The air that afternoon

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.

Huntington/Tri S, WV (KHTS), 12:00Z

10.0 hours before the tornado, 52 km from the path. August 8, 1979.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Huntington/Tri S, WV at 12:00Z on 1979-08-08Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1792 joules per kilogram, CIN -60, lifted condensation level 887 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Huntington/Tri S, WV at 12:00Z on 1979-08-08The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 50 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 18 knots.1939Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
1792 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-60 J/kg
Surface CAPE
770 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
887 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
18 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
13 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
50 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
74 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
3.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Huntington/Tri S, WV (KHTS), 00:00Z

2.0 hours after it, 52 km from the path. August 9, 1979.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Huntington/Tri S, WV at 00:00Z on 1979-08-09Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 822 joules per kilogram, CIN -162, lifted condensation level 1321 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Huntington/Tri S, WV at 00:00Z on 1979-08-09The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity -62 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 25 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
822 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-162 J/kg
Surface CAPE
39 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1321 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
25 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
11 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-62 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-1 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
3.3
0-3 km lapse rate
3.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Charleston/Kanawha (CRW), 34 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
20:00 UTC9075270° 10 kt1020.3DZ
21:00 UTC8875280° 12 kt1020DZ
21:18 UTC20° 20 kt271021TS
22:00 UTC726330° 14 kt1023TS
22:01 UTC60° 5 kt1022.7TSRA FG
22:23 UTC140° 8 kt1022TSRA FG
23:00 UTC696590° 5 kt1022TS

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1979 tornado in West VirginiaEvery tornado in West Virginia since 1950Warnings in force in West Virginia nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of August 8, 1979

6 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
August 88:25 AM CDTF0Starke, IN0.110$5,000 to $50,000
August 89:24 AM ESTF1Noble, IN0.1101$50,000 to $500,000
August 810:30 AM CDTF2Sioux, IA0.4100$500,000 to $5 million
August 812:30 PM EDTF2Marion, OH1.250$50,000 to $500,000
August 84:00 PM EDTF0Marion, WV0.110$500 to $5,000
August 87:00 PM CDTF1Iowa, IA2.030$5,000 to $50,000

What this means

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.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.