For the third and fourth time in recorded history, and the first time in 28 years, Pendleton County experienced a tornado touching down.
Last week, storms raged across West Virginia, prompting a statewide disaster declaration for all 55 counties by Governor Patrick Morrissey.
Some of these, particularly those that drove through North Central West Virginia and through the Potomac Highlands before entering Virginia, were of the “supercell” variety.
Supercell storms pose more danger than even the destructive “derecho” types of storms. Those are multiple “ordinary cell” storms that move in tandem as a line extending for hundreds of miles. Normally derecho damage comes from “straight line” winds rather than tornadoes.
According to the National Weather Service, supercells “are highly organized storms characterized by updrafts that can attain speeds of over 100 mph and are able to produce giant hail with strong, or even violent, tornadoes.” Downdrafts, or winds forcefully pushing downward from the storm “can produce downbursts/outflow winds in excess of 100 mph.”
Atmospheric instability and, in this case a hard cold front, helped to form “ideal” conditions for supercells. Wind dynamics can cause the entire storm to rotate. Precipitation can fall so heavily that it obscures tornadoes hidden within. Heavy precipitation will also bring the likelihood of flash flooding or worse.
The first of the Potomac Highlands tornadoes touched down at about 6:20 p.m. An EF1 tornado landed at High View near the Hampshire County and Virginia line and crossed into Frederick County, Virginia. It traveled 3.5 miles and had winds that topped out near 110 miles per hour. The tornado warning zone, indicating the potential danger, started about five miles east of Purgitsville and extended across southern Hampshire County.
It affected some structures on private property, but the National Weather Service stated that “thousands of trees were downed (80 to 90 percent at one point).” The NWS affirmed the potential danger from that small tornado, noting that “many of which were hardwoods 1-2 feet thick snapped at the trunk.”
A little more than 30 minutes after the Hampshire County tornado dissipated, an EF-0 “tornado briefly touched down near Seneca Rocks just after 7 p.m.” Most of the damage occurred with trees along Thunder Road “with trees uprooted in a convergent pattern.” Only two minutes elapsed between touch down and dissipation.
A much more significant EF-1 tornado touched ground at about 7:25 p.m. at Kiser Gap Road “about a half mile north of the intersection with US Route 33.” It moved east-northeast through Troublesome Valley through the Fort Seybert area before crossing into Virginia and lifting near Criders, Virginia.
At Troublesome Valley, as Rick Gillespie, Pendleton County Emergency Services coordinator, explained “during the onset of the storm, a female citizen was jogging along Troublesome Valley Road. Hearing the alerts, her husband packed their baby into the car and went to go pick her up.”
“As he arrived at her location about 1.6 miles out . . . the tornado hit with a tree landing on the hood of their car and one behind it.”
Gillespie added, “A few feet were the difference between life and death. All three escaped injury.”
The tornado’s movement extended for a little more than 10 miles. “Thousands of trees were downed along this rural 10.5 mile path,” shared the NWS.
In an office of emergency management release, Gillespie noted that the storm “flattened to the ground” a 120-year old barn near Fame. A mobile home was also destroyed on Redbud Hill Lane off of Sweedlin Valley Road.
Gillespie stated, “This event proves that tornadoes do occur in these mountains, and we suggest residents take all NWS warnings seriously. We thank the fine folks with the NWS and area meteorologists for their professional services and for providing us with the alerts. Thanks to our VFDs, 911 personnel, WV DOH, law enforcement officers and citizens for working together to make recovery a speedy process. We are thankful that no one was injured.”
Hardy County saw two separate tornado warnings. Storm rotations that indicated the likelihood of a tornado sparked warnings in two areas, from near Purgitsville and extending to Wardensville and also from an area south of Petersburg reaching into southern Hardy County.
In North Central West Virginia, the storm brought heavy rains that caused significant destruction and also the loss of two lives.
Several inches of rain falling in a short duration created deadly and destructive flooding in Upshur and Lewis counties. Water running through town streets appeared almost as creeks or rivers. Flooding also blocked both Corridor H at Weston and Interstate 79 nearby. Weston received just under five inches of rain while Buckhannon got 5.3. Some communities directly south of the Corridor H highway connecting those cities saw almost 6.5 inches.
The NWS did include a prediction of supercell storms in its special alert for the Mid Atlantic region on July 21.
Earlier in the day, three tornadoes touched down almost simultaneously in Washington County, Ohio and crossed the Ohio River into Pleasants County. One of those traveled into Tyler County.
