EF1 tornado, Tacy, West Virginia, June 21, 2016

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

June 21, 2016

Touchdown

9:30 PM EDT (01:30 UTC)

Lifted

9:32 PM EDT (01:32 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.4 miles (0.6 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$20,000

County

Barbour County

Touchdown point

39.156, -79.964

Lift-off point

39.155, -79.957

Record number

1606211930-01

25 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS RLX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 100 mph.

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

Scattered thunderstorms formed during the late morning and early afternoon across extreme southern Ohio, northern Kentucky, and central and southern West Virginia. This was in the muggy summer air, south of a slow moving cold front. The thunderstorms formed into a broken line by 1500E. A few cells pulsed to severe limits. A tornado even occurred over the mountainous terrain in eastern Nicholas County. Downpours were common. Closer to the surface front, a few additional cells formed in northern West Virginia during the evening hours. One of those storms even had a brief tornado in Barbour County.

The tornado began near the intersection of Old Route 38 and Route 38, just east of the Sugar Creek Bridge. Several trees were snapped at the trunk and uprooted along the damage path. One home sustained significant siding damage. The siding was torn off the west side of the house and thrown about 100 feet into a field to the north. A few flatbed single axle trailers were flipped in the front yard of another residence. Eight utility poles were down by falling trees and wind. Near the end of the path, a 4 inch diameter branch penetrated the roof of a home. The end of the damage path was along Route 38, about a quarter mile past Reger Road.

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.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 01:45 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.

Clarksburg/Benedum (CKB), 28 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Pittsburgh radar (KPBZ), 155 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:29 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 2016 tornado in West VirginiaEvery tornado in West Virginia since 1950Warnings in force in West 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.