Do WV mountains stop tornadoes and severe weather?
Not in the least bit! West Virginia’s tornado incidents are few due to our climate, not because of our mountains. Tornado and/or severe thunderstorm formation is a product of large-scale weather forces that can happen anywhere the conditions are right, and is largely independent of topography. The climate in the northeastern USA (not only in WV) makes it a rare event for all of the meteorological ‘ingredients’ needed to form tornadoes to come together. But when those ingredients DO come together, nothing on the ground will stop a tornado from forming – not even West Virginia’s highest mountains. During the ‘Super Outbreak’ in April of 1974, those ‘ingredients’ came together in a big way – resulting in an incredible 148 tornadoes touching down in 13 states during a 16-hour time frame. West Virginia was included in the disaster, with several large twisters slicing their way northeast through McDowell, Wyoming, Raleigh, Summers, Fayette, and Greenbrier counties. These tornadoes traversed
