Two Tornadoes Struck Washington DC Thursday Evening

Screen shot of the U.S. Capitol as a tornado passed nearby
Thursday evening.

 I'm really hoping nobody was on the famed Mall in Washington DC Thursday around 9 p.m.

A rare tornado swept in from nearby Arlington, Virginia to near 16th Street and Constitution Avenue NW, and into the Mall, according to the National Weather Service office in Baltimore/Washington.

Damage was pretty extensive in Arlington, where a man was hospitalized after the tornado tossed a tree onto his house, collapsing the porch. Trees and power lines were downed a greenhouse was trashed and a shed was leveled. Many homes had relatively minor damage, including shingles and clapboards ripped from roofs and walls.  

The tornado continued into Washington DC, and onto the Mall. It passed less than a mile from the U.S. Capitol, White House and Lincoln Memorial. In fact the end point of tornado damage was on the south end of the Ellipse, which is basically next to the White House.

The tornado uprooted and broke numerous trees in the Mall. Fencing erected for this weekend's Fourth of July celebrations were toppled and move and mangled, so that will have to be hurriedly fixed today. 

For comparison, same web cam as above when the weather
is clear, without a tornado

This EF-1 tornado had maximum winds of 90 mph and carved a path that was 4.4 miles long and up to 125 yards wide. 

By no means huge, this tornado was still larger and longer-lasting than many reported across the United States annually.  

Tornado warnings went up ahead of the storm and it seems most people took shelter. There was just that one injury in Arlington. Still, there was disconcerting video on social media of people in the Lincoln Memorial as the tornado passed close by.  

A second, weaker, more brief tornado touched down for a short time a mile northeast of the Capitol. It had top winds of 80 mph and traveled just three quarters of a mile before lifting.

According to the Washington Post, tornadoes are relatively rare in DC, but do happen. There have been three tornadoes in the district since 1950, the most recent in 2017.  That one caused some damage around the Tidal Basin, right near where Thursday's tornado touched down.