1996 Northern Virginia Tornadoes

1996 Northern Virginia Tornado List

For the Official Report on this event, see Storm Data, an official publication by the National Climatic Data Center in Ashville, NC. Their web site is https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/.

1)June 24, 1996 F0 3:10 pm .5 miles Loudoun County

A small tornado touch down along Route 50 between Middleburg and Uppersville in southern Loudoun County. Few trees down. Tornado sighted by a state trooper.

2) June 24, 1996 F2 3:40 pm 20 miles Loudoun and Fairfax Counties

Same storm (mesocyclone) dropped a second tornado in the southeast tip of Loudoun County only 7 nm south of our radar. The tornado strengthened to an F2 in western Fairfax County as it moved toward Sully Station. After about 4 to 5 miles of damage, the tornado began to rope out and slowly weaken but it remained on the ground damaging trees and some houses. It was an F1 as moved through the City of Fairfax and weakened to an F0 as it approached Annadale and the Capitol Beltway. (Map of track is on the home page). Six homes were condemned with a total of 17 receiving major damage. dozens more had moderate damage. Many of the homes in the path of the storm as it moved through Fairfax were in heavily wooded areas. The woods protected the houses from the brunt of the tornado winds, but many homes were damaged by trees falling on them. The storm also produced a 60 to 80 mph downburst and so many trees and powerlines came down that some areas of the county were without power for a week. 80,000 homes had lost power during the storm. Insurance estimates of county-wide damage ranged anywhere from 3 to 6 million dollars. We only recorded one injury.

3) June 24, 1996 F1 7:00 pm .5 mile Rockingham County

A small tornado was spawned from a supercell that moved through Timberville. Damage was mostly to trees. A couple roofs were blown off and several chimneys.

4) July 19, 1996 F1 3:24 pm 4 miles Loudoun County

A second tornado was spawned out of a mesocyclone. It touched down in Brunswick, MD, crossed the Potomac River into Loudoun County and continued to do damage for another 4 miles as it weakened. Its total path length was 6 miles (including MD portion). Most of the damage was to trees. Several homes experience exterior damage to siding, shingles, and other outdoor fixtures. No one was hurt.

5) July 19, 1996 F0 3:50 pm 1 mile Loudoun County

This was the same mesocyclone mentioned above and was the 4th tornado produced by it. The storm had again crossed the Potomac into Maryland. This tornado again touched down in Maryland near the Potomac and than crossed over into Virginia. It was caught on video by one of our amateur radio spotters and passed not far from my house. Damage was to trees.

6) September 6, 1996 F0 10:30 am .5 mile Fauquier County

Tropical Storm Fran spawned a small tornado near Remington. It left a well-defined narrow path through a corn field into a grove of pine trees. Numerous trees in a small area were damaged or destroyed before the tornado dissipated.