(Note: Updates to this post are at the bottom)

And I’m not talking about religious zealots. Tornadoes struck the state again, not long after the Suffolk tornadoes. It’s a bit unusual for tornadoes to strike as they have this past week, yet here on the East Coast they are still dangerous, if not more so, than those out west. Why?

1. There are less tornadoes, thus citizens are less conditioned to prepare and deal with them.

2. More moisture accompanies the storms, obscuring tornadoes behind curtains of rain.

3. The geography limits visibility, allowing the possibility that tornadoes can be very close but out of site behind a hill or group of trees. Believe me, I witnessed this very scary phenomenon.

4. There are no tornado sirens. Yes, media coverage is great and helps a lot, but what about at night? I’m loathe to go to bed tonight until these storms pass. Plus, nothing gets you running like a tornado siren.

Tonight my Dad (of Storms-R-Us) met Mrs. Head Fred and me at our condo and we set out for Thornburg. There we grabbed the latest data off a free wi-fi connection and made a course correction for Mineral. On the way somewhere off 208 we stopped to watch a rising tower that had obvious spin. Though the cloud did not form into a storm, the rotation alerted us that if anything went up, Central Virginia would be in trouble.

While there I had to take this picture:

We stopped again at Ware’s Crossroads at the junction of VA-208 and US-522 for some snacks and a bathroom stop. There was an interesting barn just next to the store.

After grabbing cell-phone data we spotted a storm forming in far southwest Buckingham County. We cut over to Louisa CH and targeted Palmyra in Fluvanna County. On the way we heard of the tornado watch and knew the storm we were headed towards turned severe. At this point our light started diminishing, making things just a bit more dangerous.

As we passed through Palmyra, we came over a hill and saw the storm base:

We stopped below town and saw the funnel cloud trying to reach the ground.

We doubled back north and saw the tornado briefly touch the ground.

At this point we called the Wakefield NWS office to report what we saw. (We had some confusion over who to call as we were at the boundary of the Sterling, Blacksburg, and Wakefield offices) They immediately issued a tornado warning for Fluvanna and Louisa for the storm that was just behind us. As it was dark we decided to play it safe and head home rather than tango with another storm.

Little did we know that when we got home that the storm followed us and caused the National Weather Service to issue a tornado warning for the area.

The storm fell apart over Stafford and reformed just in time to target Quantico/Triangle.

Look at how far the “tail” of the hook echo extends to make what looks like a sideways comma. Impressive! That’s air streaming into the the center of the circulation from over 20 miles away.

So far wind damage reports have come in just northeast of Berea & northwest of England Run near Truslow Road in Stafford. Nothing mentioning tornadoes, but there’s still time for those reports to come in.

All in all, a crazy night. I hope everyone’s okay as tracking these suckers is so difficult.

12:26am update: Lt. Mark Stone of Stafford County Fire & Rescue reporting on Channel 7 that about 25 homes in the Berea section have various damage and residents were evacuated to Gayle Middle School. Technical teams are coming from Quantico and Fairfax. At least one resident sustained a minor injury and was transported to Mary Washington. Fire personnel are doing a house by house assessment.

12:45am update: ABC 7 showed a shot of the siding gone from a house. Several roofs are apparently off.

1:18am update: Below are two maps I created with the help of Mapquest. (I would use Google Maps but they don’t show county boundaries.)

The first shows the damage area around Berea/Truslow Road. The next shows the general path of the tornado. The dotted line represents where the storm fell apart and then reformed near north of Aquia to threaten Quantico with another tornado warning.

1:24am update: Doug Hill on ABC 7 reports that several people are trapped in their homes in Stafford.

1:27am update: Map of power outages from Dominion largely bears out the above track. Several spots center on the damaged area around Berea. Not sure what’s happening with the one spot around Lee’s Hill. Regardless, off to bed.

7:45am update: Fox 5 has a good photo gallery of the damage. WUSA-TV Channel 9 says something about 100 houses, which is much higher than initial reports last night. Rather then 30-40 families displaced, the total is now supposed to be 100. The Free Lance-Star (wow they made it!) has an article with video. Quite a few other media outlets have also covered the damage.

Again, what state are we in?