An infamous Virginia weather event remembered in story and song has kept its deadly place atop the record book for almost a century, a record no one with the least shred of empathy would hope is ever passed.
The Rye Cove tornado of May 2, 1929, that swept away 13 lives — 12 students and a teacher — as it splintered a schoolhouse with 150 inside, most of whom were injured, in Southwest Virginia’s Scott County remains Virginia’s deadliest tornado 96 years later.
Rye Cove was not the only tornado to hit Virginia or surrounding states on May 2, 1929. At least five tornadoes occurred in Virginia, with at least 22 total deaths, on that dark Thursday nearly six months before the infamous Black Tuesday that began the Great Depression. Over May 1-2, 1929, at least 17 tornadoes hit nine states, killing 42 people and injuring more than 300, though it’s very likely that there were many more tornadoes than have been registered by the sparse observations and recording system of the time.
Several barns and houses were destroyed as a tornado stayed on the ground for 17 miles in Alleghany County and Bath County, starting near Iron Gate. Six people were killed on that day in homes as a tornado moved across parts of Fauquier and Culpeper counties. And there was even another schoolhouse hit in Rappahannock County on the same day as Rye Cove, with at least one student killed.
At Rye Cove, one of the first people to check on the destruction and offer help a hollow over was A.P. Carter of the Carter Family trio. He composed the song “The Cyclone of Rye Cove,” immortalizing the deadly tragedy.
“Oh listen today and a story I’ll tell,
In sadness and tear rimmed eyes,
Of a dreadful cyclone that came this way,
And blew our schoolhouse away. …
There were mothers so dear and fathers the same,
That came to this terrible scene,
Searching and crying each found their own child,
Dying on a pillow of stone“
(A couple of stanzas from “The Cyclone of Rye Cove,” the full lyrics of which can be found by clicking here.)
There is no doubt based on recorded observations that what hit the Rye Cove school was, in fact, a tornado. The principal of the school, for instance, recalled seeing a “whirlwind” that became a “black cloud” as the building he was in disintegrated and he soon found himself in a pond. (You can read a good summary of the tornado in the Encyclopedia Virginia entry linked here.)
Unlike a tornado that would occur today, there aren’t Doppler radar images of the velocity couplet or a hook echo that we can replay from Rye Cove or any of the 1929 tornadoes, nor was there any detailed post-storm survey as would occur today. But 96 years later, Virginia still hasn’t experienced a more deadly tornado than Rye Cove, and hopefully it stays that way.
A few takeaways for today from Rye Cove.
Tornado vs. Cyclone
The song the Carters sang does not mention the word “tornado” at all, but rather, “cyclone.”
Mostly, this reflects a cultural shift in the labeling of these violent twisting updrafts associated with supercell thunderstorms — another term not yet uttered in early 20th century. But the word “cyclone” is still relevant.
In a broad sense scientifically, a cyclone refers to any closed atmospheric system that rotates counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere, as the spiral of rising air is affected by the Coriolis effect of the Earth’s rotation. Every closed low-pressure system is a cyclone, including the mightiest hurricane and the puniest atmospheric spin that might spray out a few showers. Though much smaller in scale and much less directly affected by the Earth’s rotation, most tornadoes spin “cyclonically” or counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, influenced by the rotation of their parent supercells and the broader wind field of the large low-pressure “cyclone,” though some spin “anticyclonically” or clockwise due to localized storm dynamics.
A “cyclone” is also the word used for hurricanes in the Indian Ocean, just as “typhoon” is the word for hurricanes in East Asia and much of the western Pacific.
“Cyclone” was the common vernacular to describe tornadoes in much of the U.S. through the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a time when the use of the more specific “tornado” was largely avoided officially for fear it would cause undue panic.
The Spanish-influenced “tornado” became more common in the mid to late 20th century as the veil was removed with efforts increasing to warn the public about potential tornadoes, including the issuance of tornado watches and warnings.
Southwest corner of Virginia can be different
With the advent of Cardinal News in 2021, its region of coverage has been broadly defined as “Southwest and Southside Virginia.” Look at the Cardinal News logo, and everything in front of the bird’s chest and below its peak defines this broad region.
When it gets to the nitty-gritty of geography and culture, there are many different pieces within the mosaic of Southwest and Southside Virginia. The same is often true with atmospheric setups.
Just as Southside Virginia often has more in common with Greensboro or Raleigh when it comes to many weather setups, the southwest corner of Virginia — some of which is closer to the capitals of eight other states than it is to Richmond — often aligns more with what’s happening in Tennessee or Kentucky, or more broadly, the Tennessee and Ohio river valleys, than it does with what’s happening near and just east of the Blue Ridge.
With regard to weather, it is often but not always the case that cooler, more stable air banks against the Appalachians, frequently dampening severe storms crossing from states to our west. But the effect tends to lessen the more ridges one has to cross heading westbound, and often the counties in the Southwest corner are left out of this cooler wedge. With severe storms, what happens in Tennessee and Kentucky more readily makes it to the Southwest corner than areas farther east that may more broadly be lumped into being considered (sometimes controversially) Southwest Virginia.
This appears likely to have played a role in the violent storm that spawned the Rye Cove tornado so easily crossing from Tennessee without losing intensity.
Overflow from outbreak to west
Some of Virginia’s worst tornado outbreaks — such as the April 2011 outbreak alluded to briefly in last week’s weather column — are actually focused elsewhere to the west and southwest and then bleed over into Virginia.
While in some ways the 1929 outbreak that included Rye Cove is more focused on Eastern U.S. states, it is obvious that the tornado outbreak had already started to our west.
There were at least seven tornadoes reported in states to our west and southwest on May 1-2, 1929, before Rye Cove or anywhere else in Virginia was affected.
Considering this was a time many decades before Doppler radar, modern intensive storm surveys, and ubiquitous photo technology and instant communication, let alone a more comprehensive knowledge of how tornadoes develop in a time when the word “tornado” was commonly censored in weather reports for fear it could stir panic, it’s a safe bet to assume the actual tornado count was probably at least three times the seven recorded for history across these states.
(Considering five tornadoes were reported in Virginia, guessing there might have been at least 15 total would be within reason as well.)
The outbreak is often called the “Rye Cove outbreak” because its most deadly tornado was at Rye Cove, Virginia, but there may well have been scores of tornadoes in addition to the multiple known deadly ones.
Tornadoes and schools
Tornadoes striking schools has proven to be a repeated nightmare in American weather history.
It is not uncommon in modern times for schools to let out early in tornado-prone regions when severe weather outbreaks are expected.
This can be somewhat controversial, as many youngsters live with their families in wooden frame houses or even mobile homes much more easily twisted or tossed into oblivion by tornadoes than the steel and concrete structures of most modern schools. The thought exists that many students would be much safer taking shelter in their school buildings rather than going home.
Be that as it may, Rye Cove is not the only example of a tornado striking a school in session with deadly results.
In fact, as we’ve noted, later on the same day as the Rye Cove schoolhouse was destroyed, a student was killed and as many as 15 injured when a school was destroyed near Woodville in Rappahannock County.
At Belvidere, Illinois, on April 21, 1967, a tornado roared through just as school buses were being loaded at the end of the day at a high school, with many being flipped along with the students inside them. The death toll at the school matched that of Rye Cove at 13, nearly half of the 28 total who died at Belvidere.
Seven children died when a cinder block wall collapsed on them as they were taking shelter in the Moore, Oklahoma, tornado of May 20, 2013. A concrete wall collapsed, killing eight high school students sheltering from a tornado at Enterprise, Alabama, on March 1, 2007.
The words of the Carters’ plaintive song from nearly a century ago have rung sadly true in other places at other times since.
The good news is that tornado fatalities, as a whole, have dropped dramatically since the time of Rye Cove. There is little doubt that this is because of the advanced forecasting, detection and warning for tornadoes that has been developed mostly since World War II and especially in the past 35 years.
For example, there have been 14 tornadoes that have killed over 100 people in U.S. history. Only one of those, the 158 killed at Joplin, Missouri, on May 22, 2011, has occurred in the past 72 years. It is not unreasonable to think that this might have been a 500-fatality tornado in the early 20th century.
There is hope that there never will be a more deadly tornado than Rye Cove in Virginia in the lifetime of anyone reading this. But it still requires individual vigilance and the knowledge, experience, and technology of meteorologists whose numbers and funding are being thinned.
Journalist Kevin Myatt has been writing about weather for 20 years. His weekly column, appearing on Wednesdays, is sponsored by Oakey’s, a family-run, locally-owned funeral home with locations throughout the Roanoke Valley. Sign up for his weekly newsletter: