EF1 tornado in Cabell County, West Virginia

An EF1 tornado with maximum winds of 105 miles per hour endured a track of about 4 miles, extending from just south of Route 2 near the Guyandotte River to just west of the Barboursville Mall. This was a non-continuous track with several notable damage locations.

A narrow concentrated area of hardwood tree damage was noted on a hilltop along Viewpoint Lane. Several of the trees were either snapped or uprooted in a converging pattern and continued southeast along Estate Drive.

Significant mixed hardwood and softwood tree damage was observed along Guyan River Road with most of the intense damage occurring along the banks of the Guyandotte River. Numerous large hardwood and softwood trees were either snapped or uprooted. Damage to a mobile home occurred due to a large fallen tree. In addition, damage to the roof of an apartment complex on the other side of the river on Beech Drive occurred from a fallen tree. This section of the track is where the maximum winds are believed to have occurred.

The tornado path continued eastward with a distinct damage swath of hardwood trees noted along Merritts Creek Road. Large hardwood trees were either snapped or uprooted in a converging pattern. A small mobile office unit was blown in the opposite direction of the orientation of the tree damage. From here, the tornado reached its maximum width of 200 yards as it entered into a valley. Tree damage continued east up the ridgetop along Big Ben Bowen Highway before ending along Wildcat Road. The tornado is believed to have lifted before reaching the Barboursville Mall, which is supported by archived radar images.

This tornado, as with many of the others on this day, stayed mainly in the treetops with little in the way of property damage observed.

Outside of the tornado path, rear flank downdraft wind damage occurred east and southeast of the tornado, where a concrete block wall attached to the exterior of the mall was blown apart to the northeast. In addition, part of the roof of a business just east of the mall was lifted and blown to the northeast as well. Finally, scattered tree damage was observed on both sides of Interstate 64 east of the mall, with a general orientation to the northeast.

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.