Thunderstorm Wind — Smyth, Virginia

2025-05-17 · near Saltville, Smyth, Virginia

Event narrative

Thunderstorm winds downed a couple trees near the intersection of Worthy Boulevard and McKee Street, Worthy Boulevard and Ridgeview Road, and a tree near the intersection of Madison and Palmer Avenue.

Wider weather episode

A large surface low pressure system slowly moved across the northern Plains, with the associated cold front stalling across the Ohio Valley. A mesoscale convective system developed over Kentucky and tracked east towards the central Appalachians, bringing storms the area by the afternoon of May 16. The cold pool from the advancing MCS provided enough lift for convection to break through the morning inversion, and plenty of daytime heating increased SBCAPE to 4000 J/kg. The mesoscale environment was conducive for large hail and damaging winds, which led to numerous reports of downed trees and hail an inch or larger in diameter.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (36.8800, -81.7600)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1258420. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.