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EF0 tornado in Arlington County, Virginia

Tornado April 6, 2017 · Arlington County, Virginia

EF0
Rating
6.5 mi
Whole path
50 yd
Path width
1
Injury

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Arlington County → District of Columbia, District of Columbia → District of Columbia, District of Columbia; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 50 yards (0.03 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

Trees were snapped along Interstate 395 adjacent to Army-Navy

Country Club at approximately 1:39 PM EDT. Video of a portion of

the Pentagon Parking Lot showed a vortex cross between two light

poles, ripping off one lamp from the top of the poles. Additional

video from the Pentagon showed two rope-like funnel clouds form at

the same time, although it could not be determined from the video

whether these funnels touched the ground or were attached to the

cloud base. Video from the National Park Service National Mall and

Memorial Parks showed a waterspout over the Potomac River west of

the Tidal Basin; however, it is not clear the vertical extent of

this waterspout and whether it was sourced from the cloud base, or

an independent vortex associated with the gust front.

The wider storm

Cutoff low pressure was over the Ohio Valley. Another area of low pressure strengthened overhead on the occluded boundary. Warm and moist air from the south lead to an unstable atmosphere. Strong shear profiles were in place due to the cutoff low to the west. Strong lift associated with the developing low combined with strong shear and enough instability to produce severe thunderstorms and isolated tornadoes.

Began near South Washington (38.8500, -77.0700).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

EF0 Orange CountyEF0 Fauquier CountyEF0 Fauquier CountyEF0 Fauquier CountyEF0 Fairfax County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 691220. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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