Saturday, April 16, 2011

Update - At Least Four Confirmed Tornadoes In Virginia On Saturday

Severe thunderstorms raced across the area Saturday afternoon and produced widespread damage. At one point, storms were moving 55 to 70 mph. There are now at least four confirmed tornadoes in Virginia.

One tornado touched down in Augusta County (EF-1 with max winds 95 mph) and knocked down several trees and destroyed numerous barns.

A tornado is now confirmed in Dinwiddie County with a path around 8 miles long and 300 yards wide. Many homes were damaged along the path of this tornado.

Two more tornadoes were confirmed in Isle Of Wight and Gloucester counties. There was extensive damage in Gloucester with three fatalities. National Weather Service is going to survey the damage more today to see the strength of the tornado.

There was also wind damage in Halifax County where eight homes were destroyed with four minor injuries. National Weather Service will survey the damage today to see if this was from a tornado.

At one point, the Tri-Cities area was under a Tornado Warning, however, with the exception to a few toppled tress, there were no reports of major damage.

There were a few reports of hail in Crewe and Powhatan. We received pictures of quarter to golfball-sized hail.

Here are some maps which show all of the storm reports from today. The "W" represents wind damage, "H" is hail and "T" is tornado. North Carolina was hit hardest today, where there were nearly 100 tornado reports!