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EF2 tornado in Wise County, Virginia

Tornado May 8, 2009 · Wise County, Virginia

EF2
Rating
1.7 mi
Path length
120 yd
Path width
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 120 yards (0.07 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF2 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF2 is considerable damage: roofs torn off well-built houses, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, consistent with estimated gusts of 111–135 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

An EF2 tornado with maximum wind speeds of 120 miles an hour occurred around five miles southeast of Pound, Virginia. Tornado damage was observed along the path which measured 1.7 mile in length with a path width of 120 yards. Two trailers along with several outbuildings were destroyed while one trailer was damaged. Numerous trees...some in clusters...were downed by the high wind speeds generated by the tornado.

The wider storm

A highly organized mesoscale convective vorticity maximum with strong low to mid tropospheric flow coupled with moderate instability resulted in the development of discrete supercellular thunderstorms. These storms produced a long-lived tornado across Northeast Tennessee late in the afternoon and another long duration tornado across Southwest Virginia later in the evening.

Began near Hugh (37.0668, -82.5494).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

2 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 170982. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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