A tornado touched down in Youngs Bottom near Elkview on Wednesday evening, when Yeager Airport recorded the top wind gust - 84 miles per hour - in 57 years of recording winds there, the National Weather Service reported.

The storm moved through the Kanawha Valley around 6:30 p.m., part of a line of thunderstorms that dropped most of the day's rainfall of 0.72 inches, meteorologist John Victory said. The storms hit north of the city, striking an area that stretched from the airport and up U.S. 119 to Clendenin.

As tornadoes go, this was a modest one, with an estimated wind force of 80 mph and registering a zero on the zero to 5 scale that the Weather Service uses to rate hurricanes, with zero being the weakest, Victory said. It touched down three miles northeast of Elkview and cut a swath 50 yards wide and 300 yards long. The strongest winds were 90 mph straight-line that struck the Clendenin area, Victory said. (Tornadoes have rotating winds.)

At their worst, the Wednesday evening storms uprooted and split trees, ripped siding and roofing shingles off buildings, and shoved some manufactured homes a few inches on their foundations, Victory said.

The Kanawha County Commission and the Kanawha County Solid Waste Authority will place Dumpsters on the gravel parking lot across from the Clendenin Post Office until 1 p.m. March 28. The Dumpsters are for the disposal of building materials and other items damaged in the storm. No tree limbs or hazardous waste will be accepted.

To contact staff writer Bob Schwarz, use e-mail or call 348-1249.

A tornado touched down in Youngs Bottom near Elkview on Wednesday evening, when Yeager Airport recorded the top wind gust - 84 miles per hour - in 57 years of recording winds there, the National Weather Service reported.

The storm moved through the Kanawha Valley around 6:30 p.m., part of a line of thunderstorms that dropped most of the day's rainfall of 0.72 inches, meteorologist John Victory said. The storms hit north of the city, striking an area that stretched from the airport and up U.S. 119 to Clendenin.

As tornadoes go, this was a modest one, with an estimated wind force of 80 mph and registering a zero on the zero to 5 scale that the Weather Service uses to rate hurricanes, with zero being the weakest, Victory said. It touched down three miles northeast of Elkview and cut a swath 50 yards wide and 300 yards long. The strongest winds were 90 mph straight-line that struck the Clendenin area, Victory said. (Tornadoes have rotating winds.)

At their worst, the Wednesday evening storms uprooted and split trees, ripped siding and roofing shingles off buildings, and shoved some manufactured homes a few inches on their foundations, Victory said.

The Kanawha County Commission and the Kanawha County Solid Waste Authority will place Dumpsters on the gravel parking lot across from the Clendenin Post Office until 1 p.m. March 28. The Dumpsters are for the disposal of building materials and other items damaged in the storm. No tree limbs or hazardous waste will be accepted.

To contact staff writer Bob Schwarz, use e-mail or call 348-1249.