How rare is a Hampton tornado?
After Friday’s tornado in Hampton, many locals are saying, “I don’t ever remember anything like this happening before.” So I dug through the records to see just how rare a Hampton tornado is.
Including Friday, there have been 6 tornadoes in the city of Hampton since 1950. Here are the numbers…
9/5/1979, F2, 30 yards wide, ~0 mile path, $50K-$500K damage
9/4/1996, F0, 30 yards wide, 2 miles path, $1000 damage
9/4/1999, F2, 300 yards wide, 1 mile path, $7.72M damage
8/30/2004, F0, 20 yards wide, ~0 mile path, $10K damage
8/11/2006, F0, 25 yards wide, 0.3 miles path, $0 damage
6/2/2012, EF1, 0.3 miles wide, 3.5 miles path, $4.3M damage
Friday’s tornado was not the strongest but did have the widest path and longest path. Of these 6 tornadoes there were no deaths and only 15 reported injuries.
If you are a fan of statistics, ponder this… Based on the tornado data since 1950, Hampton averages one tornado about every decade.