April 2 had record number of tornadoes for West Virginia, NWS warning area

The National Weather Service in Charleston has so far confirmed 10 tornadoes touched down in West Virginia on April 2, setting a new state record for the number of twisters recorded on one calendar day.

The state’s previous record for tornadoes on one day was seven, set both on April 4, 1974 and June 2, 1998.  

April 2’s severe weather also set a new record of 17 tornadoes reported on one calendar day for the entire National Weather Service in Charleston’s warning area, which includes parts of Southern Ohio and Eastern Kentucky. The previous record for tornadoes in one day was six tornadoes in one day on April 4, 1974. 

“To further put this number into perspective, the previous record number of tornadoes for an entire calendar year over the NWS Charleston County Warning Area was 11 set in 1980, and it took seven different days with tornadoes to reach that number,” the weather service wrote in a report. 

In West Virginia, tornadoes have so far been confirmed to have hit in Hico in Fayette County, Cross Lanes, Quick, Huntington, St. Albans, Hernshaw, Cabin Creek, on the Wayne/Cabell county line and two were confirmed to have hit in Putnam County at Bancroft and Buffalo. 

Damage assessments were expected to continue Monday at Hamlin in Lincoln County, in St. Albans in Kanawha County, and in Jackson and Wirt counties, and more tornadoes may be confirmed. 

Long time residents of West Virginia may have heard that mountains insulate the area from the risk of tornadoes, but John Peck, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Charleston said the mountains do not have a “tremendous effect.” 

“Really the only reason some places are more tornado prone than others is because the environment in those spots are typically more favorable, and there’s nothing particular about an individual spot,” Peck said. “You can get tornadoes just about anywhere if the environment happens to get up there.”

Low levels of moisture, strong wind shear and some sort of instability are the conditions that produce tornadoes, he said.   

“So Tornado Alley occurs because you have very steep lapse rates come off the High Desert co- located with the very moist, very warm conditions in the low levels coming off the Gulf of Mexico,” Peck said. “Over here, it’s generally a little bit different situation. You don’t typically have a strong lapse rates to get over here, but we do occasionally get some like we had on Tuesday, [April 2] with some very strong low level wind shear and pretty moist conditions. And it doesn’t take a whole lot to get the right amount of environment like that.”

The storm system brought powerful winds and hard rain through Kanawha Valley early on the afternoon of Tuesday, April 2, taking down trees, powerlines and billboards and leaving around half of Kanawha County residents without power. In Cabell County that day, more than 13,000 were left without power. 

As of Friday, no deaths or injuries related to the tornadoes had been reported to the National Weather Service. In Wood County, a Davisville woman died last week after driving into high water that crossed a road, authorities say. 

Gov. Jim Justice issued a state of emergency April 2 for Fayette, Kanawha, Lincoln, and Nicholas counties after storms thunderstorms caused flooding, downed trees, power outages, and road blockages. He amended the state of emergency April 4 to include Barbour, Brooke, Hancock, Marshall, Ohio, Wetzel, and Wood because of flooding and other storm-related threats. On April 8, Justice added Pleasants County to the state of emergency severe weather. 

Justice again amended the state of emergency Friday to include 14 more counties:  Boone, Braxton, Calhoun, Doddridge, Gilmer, Harrison, Jackson, Logan, Mingo, Ritchie, Roane, Tyler, Wayne and Wirt.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include the 14 counties added to the state of emergency.