EF1 tornado in Lee County, Virginia

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.

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.