EF0 tornado, Kanes Creek, West Virginia, May 13, 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

May 13, 2026

Touchdown

4:32 PM EDT (20:32 UTC)

Lifted

4:35 PM EDT (20:35 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

0.8 miles (1.3 km)

Path width

65 yards (59 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Preston County

Touchdown point

39.504, -79.754

Lift-off point

39.506, -79.740

Highest wind the damage implies

85 mph

Surveyed by

NWS PBZ

The office's name for it

Preston51326

Survey last edited

May 15, 2026

Record number

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

8 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS PBZ, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 85 mph.

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

Mid-afternoon thunderstorms both in broken line segments and single cells developed along and ahead of a cold front. Marginal effective shear values up to 30 knots and MLCAPE of 500-1000 J/kg supported severe thunderstorms producing both wind and hail. Wind was primarily confined to northern West Virginia along a DCAPE gradient of 600-700 J/kg. Mid-level lapse rates up to 6.5 C/km and up to 300 J/kg of hail growth zone CAPE supported numerous reports of quarter size within storms across western Pennsylvania.

A severe thunderstorm crossed northern West Virginia through|Monongalia and Preston Counties on the afternoon of May 13th, 2026.|This storm produced wind damage and quarter size hail as it tracked|across the northern part of the state. Weak mid-level rotation|tightened and intensified as the storm reached western Preston|County and produced a brief tornado. The damage produced by this|storm, surveyed by UAS and security cameras, was determined to be tornadic and representative of an EF-0 with peak wind of 85 mph. Initial damage began along the west side of Moran Road, 3 miles east of Reedsville, WV, where trees were uprooted and a roof was blown off a restaurant. This was deemed to be a surge of straight line wind damage. The character of the damage then became tornadic on the east side of Moran Road where several trees were uprooted, trunks of a few dead trees snapped, and large branches scattered within a wooded area. The tornado then continued through a few hundred yards of thick woods with sporadic tree damage noted before reaching Hovatter's Wildlife Zoo. Here, trees were snapped, uprooted, and large branches were scattered across the property. Security cameras on the property recorded a clear tornadic circulation, and visible convergence patterns in the |felled trees further confirmed the tornadic damage. The tornado then |dissipated on the east side of the zoo with no further distinguishable |path. The National Weather Service in Pittsburgh would like to thank Preston |County Emergency Management officials for their aerial footage and|aid with this survey.

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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:59 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 Pittsburgh radar (KPBZ), 121 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:29 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 2026 tornado in West VirginiaEvery tornado in West Virginia since 1950Warnings in force in West Virginia nowThe forecast where you are

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.