EF1 Tornado — Craig, Virginia

2018-04-15 · near Marshalltown, Craig, Virginia

Event narrative

A tornado briefly touched down just south of Hawkins Lane and headed northward at 4:03 PM EST. It crossed Hawkins Lane and Wild Cat Hollow Road before lifting at 4:04 PM EST. The tornado caused considerable damage to trees, homes, and outbuildings. Six homes had roof shingles and vinyl siding ripped off by the tornado. Several outbuildings and garages were destroyed. The tornado also flipped one truck upside down on to another damaged vehicle, and it also lofted small debris over 100 yards. The estimated maximum winds were 105 MPH.

Wider weather episode

A strong cold front with a negatively-tilted upper level trough approached southwest Virginia. Plenty of wind shear with modest instability made conditions ripe for large hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes. The thunderstorms ahead of the cold front became strong enough to produce six tornadoes across portions of southwest Virginia. While the first tornado originally formed in Caswell County of North Carolina and crossed into Virginia, the other five all touched down in Virginia. These tornadoes caused significant damage within the cities of Danville and Lynchburg and within the town of Elon in Amherst County. It is the first time ever since storm data records began in 1950 that a tornado struck inside the city limits of Lynchburg.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (37.5350, -80.0540)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 748608. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.