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EF2 tornado in Russell County, Virginia

Tornado May 8, 2009 · Russell County, Virginia

EF2

Rating

1.1 mi

Path length

250 yd

Path width

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

NOAA recorded where this tornado touched down but not where it lifted, so it appears as a point. 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

A tornado touched down about eight miles east-northeast of Lebanon, Virginia with maximum wind speeds of 125 miles an hour. The path length was 1.1 mile and maximum width was 250 yards. Approximately 100 trees were snapped and uprooted along the tornado path. In addition...a well constructed wooden barn was completely destroyed and while a home incurred moderate damage.

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 Lebanon (36.9443, -81.9462).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

EF2 Wise County EF0 Russell County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 171027. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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