EF1 Tornado — Lee, Virginia

2012-03-02 · near Caylor, Lee, Virginia

Event narrative

The EF1 tornado with maximum winds at 110 mph started in Claiborne County, TN, then moved northeast into Lee County. The tornado had a maximum path width of 200 yards. In Lee County the damage included two houses destroyed, four houses damaged. About 20 barns and outbuildings were damaged or destroyed along with miles of agricultural fenceline damaged/destroyed. Residential losses total about $350,000, whereas agricultural property losses totaled $1.3 million. Many trees were downed along the path.

The combined tornado path for Claiborne and Lee Counties extended about 5.0 miles.

Wider weather episode

A deepening low pressure system moved northeast from the Mid Mississippi Valley through the Great Lakes initially driving a warm front northward through the Southern Appalachian region during the afternoon. The associated cold front swept across the area late Friday night. A one hundred knot upper level jet positioned over a 50 knot low level jet resulted in a strongly sheared environment. The intense shear and moderate instability produced an atmosphere conducive to long-lived, discrete, supercell thunderstorms. A total of 3 tornadoes, ranging in intensity from EF-0 to EF-1, produced damage and one injury to a resident in the path of the storms in Southwest Virginia.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (36.5972, -83.4922)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 365153. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.