Tornadoes on the #NNK

Tornadoes are the central United States kind of weather, right? Yes and no. Florida and "Tornado Alley" experience a disproportionate number of tornadoes. But that doesn't mean that tornadoes don't hit the Northern Neck. The 28 events between January 1, 1950* and April 30, 2017 did millions of dollars in damage but thankfully, no deaths. Eleven people were, however, injured.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Storm Events Database details the 28 events which occurred in Westmoreland, Richmond, Northumberland, and Lancaster counties. The events impacted the four counties on 22 days fairly equitably: Lancaster (7), Northumberland (6), Richmond (9), and Westmoreland (6). The tornadoes caused property damage on 21 days and crop damage on one day. The cost of the damage of the tornadoes is approximately $8.6 million — $8,570,000 in property damage and $78,000 in crop damage. The 11 injuries happened on two days. The information about the twisters is compiled in the NNK Tornadoes spreadsheet.

Tornado strength

The majority of the 28 tornadoes have been F0 (7) and F1 (8). Under the EF scale, there have been 4 EF0 tornadoes and three EF1 tornadoes.



Damage

The cost of the damage of the tornadoes is approximately $8.6 million — $8,570,000 in property damage and $78,000 in crop damage. As is shown in the charts titled "Total Tornado Property Damage Value on #NNK by County January 1, 1950 - April 30, 2017" and "Percent of Total Property Damage on #NNK by County resulting from Tornadoes January 1, 1950 - April 30, 2017," Westmoreland County has borne the brunt of the property damage.



Several videos capture the damage:




* From the Storm Events Database:
The database currently contains data from January 1950 to April 2017, as entered by NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS). Due to changes in the data collection and processing procedures over time, there are unique periods of record available depending on the event type. NCEI has performed data reformatting and standardization of event types but has not changed any data values for locations, fatalities, injuries, damage, narratives and any other event specific information. Please refer to the Database Details page for more information.

This is the eighth in a series of posts about threats and risks, especially during hurricane season.