FAIRFIELD, Va. (WHSV) - The National Weather Service in Blacksburg has confirmed straight-line wind damage and a tornado in the storms from Friday night in Rockbridge county. This storm did have a severe thunderstorm warning on it and this is the same storm that prompted a tornado warning in Augusta County. While rotation was detected on radar in Augusta county, the damage was from straight-line winds in Greenville, Lyndhurst and Waynesboro.

Here are the details from the storm survey:

Damage from severe thunderstorms can be worse than a tornado. In this case the straight-line wind damage was not just in a longer path, but was also stronger than the brief tornado.

Straight-line winds can be as strong as 100mph in some rare cases.

In this storm, winds were estimated to be 65-85mph which were straight line, the strongest at the start of the damaging wind path.

The tornado touched down around Route 11 at the Fairfield United Methodist Church. The path was only 0.10 mile long but some of the damage, the siding from the church blew about a mile away.

In this case the tornado was not only small but brief. The damaging winds in this severe thunderstorm were much stronger than the actual tornado.

Now rotation was detected in this storm as it moved into Augusta county. That prompted the tornado warning, however the damage in Augusta county was all from straight-line winds.

Damage in Augusta County

Snapped trees can happen from straight-line winds.

PHOTO GALLERY

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