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EF0 tornado in District of Columbia, District of Columbia

Tornado April 6, 2017 · District of Columbia, District of Columbia

EF0

Rating

6.5 mi

Whole path

50 yd

Path width

Injury

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Arlington County, Virginia → 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

The waterspout then moved onshore near the George Mason Memorial

at the Tidal Basin at approximately 1:41 PM EDT. Here, multiple

large softwood and hardwood trees, including several ornamental

cherry trees, had large branches downed and/or were uprooted

around the Tidal Basin. While some minor tree damage was evidenced

near the George Mason Memorial on the southwest side of the Tidal

Basin, the most concentrated damage was in the grove of trees

directly adjacent to the parking lot of the Tidal Basin Marina.

The last damage reported to the NWS was to the roof of the St.

Aloysius Church at the intersection of North Capitol and I

Streets NW at 145 PM EDT.

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 Bolling Afb (38.8628, -77.0380).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 691221. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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