Thunderstorm Wind — Kanawha, West Virginia

2010-08-04 · near Charleston, Kanawha, West Virginia

Event narrative

Several trees and large branches were blown down from the East End of Charleston on toward Kanawha State Forest. Some branches fell onto vehicles. The dark screen at the baseball field was shredded by the wind.

A delayed direct death occurred in a freak accident about 2 hours after the storms had ended. A man, his 2 children, and his mom were traveling in a 4 door sedan near Kanawha State Forest just before 1900E. They had tried to attend a midweek church service, but the service was canceled due to a power outage. A large tree, weakened by the storm, fell off a hillside and directly onto their moving vehicle. The roof was smashed. The 62 year old mother was killed. She was the passenger in the front seat. The driver was seriously injured. The 2 children were not seriously hurt.

Wider weather episode

In a hot and humid air, thunderstorms moved through southeast Ohio and into West Virginia during the afternoon. Low level convergence was aided by a leftover boundary from early morning convection. The thunderstorms moved southeast around 25 to 30 mph with wind gusts the main hazard. The tall thunderstorms also produced considerable cloud to ground lightning. Power outages were common. One fatality occurred in Kanawha County.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (38.3491, -81.6239)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 247075. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.