EF0 tornado, Tomahawk, West Virginia, August 8, 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

August 8, 2024

Touchdown

11:50 PM EDT (03:50 UTC)

Lifted

11:52 PM EDT (03:52 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.5 miles (0.8 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Berkeley County

Touchdown point

39.551, -78.111

Lift-off point

39.557, -78.116

Record number

2408082150-01

4 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 80 mph.

• Numerous large branches down along Brumbaugh Lane and Mint Lane
• A large tree was uprooted and large branches were snapped of another tree. Tree appeared to be laying northeast to southwest.
• Several trees were uprooted and a few smaller trees were snapped about midway up.
• Several trees uprooted and one snapped.

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.

Berkeley County WV Emergency Management and the National Weather Service Baltimore/Washington Forecast Office conducted a survey of storm damage that occurred near Hedgesville in Berkeley County, West Virginia on Thursday night, August 08, 2024.||NWS Doppler Weather Radar in Sterling, Virginia showed a rotating thunderstorm that developed a tornado based on this survey. The damage was first noticed at 11:50 PM EDT around the intersection of Wampum Lane and Lodge Road where a large tree was uprooted and branches were snapped. The tornado continued on a path to the |northwest where most of the damage was concentrated on Brumbaugh Lane at 11:51 PM EDT. Several trees were uprooted and a few trees were snapped about midway up. Numerous large branches were down across the area as well. The direction of the damage appeared to be chaotic. The last noted damage was along the 200 block of Mound Builder Loop where several trees were uprooted and one snapped.

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 11:00 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 00:52 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), 84 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:51 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 West VirginiaEvery tornado in West Virginia since 1950Warnings in force in West 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.