ROANOKE, Va. – Tornadoes are certainly not the most common type of weather we see in southwest Virginia, but there’s one that sticks out in our area’s weather history.
Roanoke’s only confirmed tornado on record happened early in the morning on April 4, 1974. Roughly one in five tornadoes in Virginia are considered nocturnal.
It was a F-2 tornado with wind speeds between 113 mph and 157 mph.
While it did do damage to two local elementary schools, it didn’t kill any people after moving over Hershberger Road.
The Roanoke tornado was the 146th of 148 that swept through 13 different states during the 1974 super outbreak.
The most notorious storm during the outbreak was the F-5 in Xenia, Ohio, which killed 32 people and leveled the town.
There were 30 states that reached F4 or F5 status. Close to 100 were F2 or stronger.
In 2007, a new scale called the Enhanced Fujita (EF) Scale was devised to rate a tornado’s strength more accurately.