EF2 Tornado — Fayette, West Virginia

2024-04-02 · near Edmond, Fayette, West Virginia

Event narrative

A tornado touched down west of Mallard Road then traveled eastward along the roadway, causing considerable and significant tree damage with hundreds of hardwood trees uprooted and snapped. Several homes were damaged by trees or had wind damaging along Mallard Road, including one home that had significant roof damage.

The tornado continued eastward crossing Lookout Road and US 60. The tornado reached peak width of 325 yards here and peak wind speeds were likely reached just west of Lookout Road where tree damage indicated wind speeds estimated at 130 miles per hour. This tornado continued to damage or destroy several homes and businesses along US 60. One home was shifted several feet off of its foundation and the metal roof was tossed approximately 350 yards to the tree line across US 60.

The tornado continued its journey east of US 60 with a path of tree damage noted for another mile before aerial photography from the West Virginia Civil Air Patrol indicated that it lifted. Additional damage was subsequently found approximately 3 miles to the east along Bracken Creek Road where a small building was destroyed and a path of tree damage was observed.

Wider weather episode

A strong area of low pressure tracking through the Ohio Valley caused multiple rounds of thunderstorms across the state of West Virginia on April 2nd and 3rd. The first round that occurred on the 2nd took the form of an intense squall line that raced across the southern and central portions of the state during the late morning and midday hours. This caused extensive wind damage, with a 92 mile per hour wind gust measured at the Huntington Tri-State Airport, along with at least nine embedded tornadoes in a corridor from Huntington to east of Charleston. In addition to damage associated with the tornadoes, over 100 locations reported non-tornadic wind damage.

Additional thunderstorms later in the afternoon produced another tornado in the Hico community of Fayette County. The ten confirmed tornadoes during this event is a record for the most tornadoes observed during any event in the state of West Virginia.

To top it all off, the multiple rounds of thunderstorms also resulted in excessive rainfall amounts for parts of the state. This resulted in several instances of flash flooding of creeks and streams with reported road closures due to high water, primarily during the evening of April 2nd. The transition to generalized flooding occurred during the early morning of April 3rd due to the response from larger creeks. Considerable runoff from this rainfall caused river flooding along the Tygart Valley River and its tributaries, and very heavy rainfall over Pennsylvania from these same storms led to moderate to major flooding on the Ohio River between April 4th to the 6th. One fatality occurred in Wood County on the 4th when a motorist entered flood waters and their vehicle overturned and then submerged.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (38.0845, -81.0040)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1168058. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.