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EF1 tornado in Suffolk (c) County, Virginia

Tornado March 31, 2017 · Suffolk (c) County, Virginia

EF1

Rating

12.3 mi

Whole path

100 yd

Path width

$250K

Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Suffolk (c) County → Chesapeake (c) County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 100 yards (0.06 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 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

An EF1 tornado touched down along and just west of White Marsh Road, about 2 miles southeast of downtown Suffolk. A number of trees were downed or snapped off, and one outbuilding was destroyed. The debris from that outbuilding damaged the adjacent house. The tornado crossed White Marsh Road, where it entered the Great Dismal Swamp, and was no longer visible. The tornado then tracked eastward into the Deep Creek area of Chesapeake.

The wider storm

Scattered severe thunderstorms in advance of low pressure and a cold front produced damaging winds, large hail, and two tornadoes across portions of southeast Virginia.

Began near Skeeter Crossing (36.6826, -76.5701).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

1 more tornado the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

EF2 Chesapeake (c) County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 686472. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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