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EF0 tornado in Shenandoah County, Virginia

Tornado April 28, 2011 · Shenandoah County, Virginia

EF0

Rating

4.3 mi

Whole path

175 yd

Path width

$25K

Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Shenandoah County → Frederick County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 175 yards (0.10 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF0 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF0 is light damage: shingles and siding peeled, gutters torn, branches broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 65–85 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

Several trees were uprooted and snapped. A Pole Barn was unroofed and several shingles were removed from a house. The tornado crossed Interstate 81 and Route 11. The tornado path continued into Frederck County.

The wider storm

A strong cold front slowly passed through the region during the morning and early afternoon hours of the 28th. A southerly flow ahead of the front caused deep moisture over the area. The deep moisture combined with a mid-level trough to produce moderate amounts of instability. The cold front combined with the instability to trigger showers and thunderstorms. Some thunderstorms were able to mix down strong winds from aloft.

Low level wind speed and direction changed rapidly with height causing tornadoes to develop in some of the stronger thunderstorms.

Began near Capon Rd (39.0010, -78.3360).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

EF2 Rockingham County EF1 Augusta County EF1 Rockingham County EF1 Rockingham County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 302326. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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