Two tornadoes touch down near Virginia Tech

MONTGOMERY Co., Va. (WDBJ) - Tuesday night as the remnants of Ida passed through the region, two tornadoes touched down in Montgomery County near Virginia Tech.

Strong storms prompted several tornado warnings Tuesday night including Montgomery County, where Virginia Tech is located. The National Weather Service spent Wednesday looking at the damage. Survey results show two confirmed EF-1 tornadoes with estimated winds of 90-95 mph. One tornado was confirmed about 4 miles southeast of Radford where a barn was damaged and several trees were uprooted.

The second tornado was confirmed near Merrimac which is between Blacksburg and Christiansburg. Several trees were uprooted and a swing was destroyed as this tornado was briefly on the ground for 0.2 miles.

A storm chaser in the area did spot a tornado Tuesday night while a farmer said he woke up to snapped trees and part of his barn roof missing.

“Just the fence line - electric fence runs under these trees and we keep the cattle out of the woods, and you can just see it tore down a lot of the big, big old trees that have been here for years. It touched down basically right here and it looks like they’ve done a lot of damage to the woods. Thank God, no home damage,” said Tim Simpkins, who rents farm property where the one tornado struck. Simpkins said he is grateful the damage wasn’t worse and plans to start clean up efforts once the wet weather passes.

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