A tornado has been confirmed amid several wind damage reports from Monday storms that raked Virginia.
National Weather Service storm surveyors confirmed that an EF-0 tornado with maximum winds of 80 mph winds tracked about half a mile in Martinsville, snapping trees and destroying two power poles along a 125-yard-wide path near Martinsville High School.
The tornado touched down near the intersection of Commonwealth Boulevard and Fairy Street at 10:42 a.m. and lifted near the intersection of Chatham Heights Road and Bob Gregory Street at 10:45 a.m.
EF-0 is the weakest rating on the 0 to 5 Enhanced Fujita Scale of Tornado Intensity, with winds 65 to 85 mph, typically associated with broken windows and lifted shingles if a structure is hit. This tornado did not apparently strike any structure.
EF-5 tornadoes are at the top end, tornadoes with winds that exceed 200 mph and sweep well-built structures entirely off their foundations. Virginia has never experienced an EF-5 tornado, or an F5 tornado in the previous iteration of the Fujita scale, since such tornado data has been compiled going back to 1950.
The Martinsville tornado was spawned by a severe thunderstorm that tracked from Patrick County across Henry County and Martinsville and later into Pittsylvania County north of Danville on Monday morning.
The National Weather Service issued tornado warnings along its path after tight rotation was detected on radar. There were other reports of damage along the storm’s path, likely the result of straight-line winds in most cases, though additional tornado touchdowns are not out of the question.
Daytime storms on Monday proved to be not as intense or widespread as feared due to weak instability — surface temperatures did not power strong enough updrafts rising into turning winds aloft. Storms arriving somewhat earlier than expected did not allow the day to warm up as much as it could have, with clouds and showers also preventing warmer temperatures.
However, an evening squall line just ahead of a strong cold front produced numerous power outages and reports of wind damage in Southside, Central and Eastern Virginia.
After peaking at over 130,000 Virginia utility customers without power on Monday night, both from the squall line and gusty winds behind the cold front, electricity had been restored to all but a little over 3,000 as of 6 p.m. Tuesday, with no single locality in the commonwealth reporting more than 1,000 without power.
Intermittent snow showers continued in the mountainous western part of Virginia on Tuesday following heavier snow that whitened the landscape in many locations along and west of the Blue Ridge late Monday after temperatures rapidly plunged from 60s to 30s in less than four hours.
Wednesday is expected to be the coldest morning since mid-February with teens and 20s lows nearly statewide. A gradual warmup begins Thursday, with high temperatures reaching the 70s again by the weekend, and little or no rain expected through at least the middle of next week.
