WOAY-TV (Oak Hill, WV): While heavy rain pelted southern West Virginia Wednesday into early Thursday, the scene east of the mountains was reminiscent of April 2, 2024 locally.
Trees and power lines are down and even main thoroughfares difficult to cross because of all the debris that is littered on the roadways from a storm system that produced a rash of tornadoes on Wednesday in D.C’s northern suburbs.
The National Weather Service in Sterling confirms so far seven tornadoes touched down.
The highest ranking was an EF-1. If you do recall, an F-2 touched down in our area in Hico on April 2nd. However, the longest path length of a tornado from the outbreak on Wednesday was a grand total of 12 miles. Now, the National Weather Service in Sterling serves Maryland, Washington, D.C., northern Virginia, and eastern West Virginia.
The storm that produced the largest number of tornado warnings for the struggling area was Hurricane Ivan. It came north from the Gulf of Mexico and basically went along and just east of the spine of the Appalachians produced 34 tornadoes in their jurisdiction. The storm system from Wednesday produced a second number of tornado warnings for the Stirling area. That was due to a warm front that was moving through.
The common theme between number two and number three for the most tornado warnings was another warm front that moved through Friday, June 1st of 2012. So, the common theme for tornado development east of our area along the I-95 and 270 corridor, warm front passages in the warm season and approaching hurricanes from the Gulf.
