EF0 tornado, Pendleton County, West Virginia, July 21, 2026

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, as surveyed

EF0, preliminary

Date

July 21, 2026

Touchdown

7:04 PM EDT (23:04 UTC)

Lifted

7:06 PM EDT (23:06 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.2 miles (0.3 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Pendleton County

Touchdown point

38.799, -79.368

Lift-off point

38.799, -79.364

Highest wind the damage implies

80 mph

Surveyed by

NWS LWX

The office's name for it

Seneca Rocks WV Tornado

Survey last edited

July 29, 2026

Record number

None yet. SPC numbers 2026 in the spring of 2027.

A tornado briefly touched down near Seneca Rocks just after 7 PM.

Damage was limited almost entirely to trees. About 30 to 50

percent of trees were damaged on property in the 400 block of

Thunder Road, with trees mostly uprooted in a convergent pattern.

The tornado tracked east-northeast. None of the farm buildings

sustained significant damage, nor did the house on the property.

The tornado crossed the road and tracked up a hillside across the

street with continued tree damage before dissipating after about

two minutes.

Written by NWS LWX in the NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit. A survey is revised as better evidence arrives.

23 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LWX and 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.

• Mixture of uprooted and snapped trees.
• Multiple large trees uprooted.
• Numerous trees uprooted and large branches snapped.
• Widespread trees uprooted and snapped along Corner Road. Old barn blown over.

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

8 minutes of warning. NWS LWX issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:56 UTC, 8 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:30 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 18:47 UTC and running to 01:07 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:01 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), 164 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:04 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 2026 tornado in West VirginiaEvery tornado in West Virginia since 1950Warnings in force in West Virginia nowThe forecast where you are

35 more have been surveyed in the United States that day, so far.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. A survey can be revised, so the rating, the path and the casualties can all still change.

NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit, the record the survey teams file from the damage, and NOAA Storm Prediction Center storm reports. Neither is the official database for 2026, which SPC publishes in the spring of 2027.