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The public record 1996 to today

Virginia wind history

The public federal storm record holds 2,332 days with wind on record somewhere in Virginia since 1996, 1,250 of them at 58 mph or more, across 67,989 reports. The strongest on record is 115 mph sustained on 23 January 2003 in CARROLL County. 63 cities have wind on record within 10 miles of their centre, and each has a page that says what was searched, which storm days more than one source carried, and how far away the nearest instruments stood. The hail family has its own index: Virginia hail history.

2,332

Days with wind on record, statewide

1,250

Days at 58 mph or more

115mph

Strongest measured, Jan 2003

63

Cities with wind on record nearby

Wind by city in Virginia

Ranked by days with wind on record within 10 miles of each city's centre, then by population, each with its strongest figure: measured in the observed tone, an estimate in the estimated tone. Every place of five thousand people or more has a page; the busiest are listed here and the rest are a disclosure away.

  1. 01 Falls Church 529 days 90 mph
  2. 02 Alexandria 508 days 90 mph
  3. 03 Norfolk 401 days 92 mph
  4. 04 Vienna 370 days 90 mph
  5. 05 Portsmouth 357 days 92 mph
  6. 06 Hampton 349 days 92 mph
  7. 07 Dumfries 346 days 83 mph
  8. 08 Poquoson 324 days 83 mph
  9. 09 Fairfax 318 days 90 mph
  10. 10 Martinsville 301 days 92 mph
  11. 11 Vinton 298 days 81 mph
  12. 12 Herndon 279 days 90 mph
  13. 13 Roanoke 277 days 81 mph
  14. 14 Newport News 258 days 83 mph
  15. 15 Virginia Beach 248 days 94 mph
  16. 16 Manassas Park 245 days 90 mph
  17. 17 Leesburg 238 days 81 mph
  18. 18 Salem 237 days 81 mph
  19. 19 Purcellville 236 days 81 mph
  20. 20 Danville 222 days 92 mph
  21. 21 Lynchburg 214 days 86 mph
  22. 22 Manassas 213 days 81 mph
  23. 23 Richmond 212 days 81 mph
  24. 24 Charlottesville 211 days 90 mph
  25. 25 Warrenton 189 days 92 mph
  26. 26 Christiansburg 188 days 90 mph
  27. 27 South Boston 182 days 115 mph
  28. 28 Fredericksburg 181 days 115 mph
  29. 29 Colonial Heights 175 days 86 mph
  30. 30 Radford 173 days 81 mph
Every place in Virginia (63)

Wind days by year in Virginia

Days with wind At 58 mph or more

The busiest year on record is 2019, with 111 days of wind, 57 of them at 58 mph or more.

Strongest wind recorded in Virginia

Measured Estimated, not measured

Strongest wind recorded in Virginia: date, wind speed, whether it was a gust or a sustained speed, evidence and where the report was taken.
Date Speed Reading Evidence County
23 Jan 2003 115 mph Sustained Ground observation CARROLL
08 May 2008 115 mph Gust Ground observation FREDERICKSBURG (C)
08 May 2008 115 mph Sustained Ground observation Not stated
25 Oct 2021 115 mph Sustained Ground observation Not stated
25 Oct 2021 115 mph Gust Ground observation HALIFAX
14 Jul 1996 101 mph Sustained Ground observation STAFFORD
28 Jul 2005 100 mph Sustained Ground observation Not stated
28 Jul 2005 100 mph Gust Ground observation ROCKBRIDGE
The next step

Get the wind report for an address in Virginia

The figures on this page are the record across Virginia: enough to know there is something to cite, and from where. None of it says what reached one roof.

Run the address and the same archive is searched at the property: every wind report with its distance and bearing from the roof, the nearest station's readings, the analysis grid sampled at the address and labelled as analyzed, and the federal record each figure came from, in a document that states its own method. Ready in minutes.

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How this page is made

What counted
Every wind report in the archive filed under Virginia by its source, with the cities ranked by the reports within 10 miles of each centre. A wind day is a calendar date with at least one report: four sources describing one storm are one afternoon of wind, not four. A report's figure is its gust where it has one and its sustained speed otherwise, and the tables say which.
Measured and estimated
A speed reported by a person or an instrument on the ground, whether read from an anemometer or judged by an observer from what the wind did, is filed as observed; a speed inferred from a grid or an analysis is an estimate and is marked as one. The two are never added together.
Severe
A day counts as severe when its strongest figure reached 58 mph, the National Weather Service criterion for a damaging gust. Weaker wind is still on the record, and still on this page.
Stations
A station reading is the wind at the instrument, not at any address, and is listed with the distance from the page's centre to the instrument. Readings are fetched for the ground around an address when a report is run and held afterwards, so the stations on a page are the ones within 30 miles that the archive holds readings from.
What this is not
Neighbouring places share reports, so counts are not exclusive. This page is the record around a place; it is not a report on any property, and it states no opinion about what reached one.
Terms used on this page
Peak gust, sustained wind, independent source: each term this page uses is defined in the glossary as the report prints it.
The record
Searched from 1996 to today. Compiled 2 November 2026 and rebuilt daily as the archive deepens. Records are reproduced as the federal sources published them. The coverage page states what the record holds, by kind and by year.

About this record

Everything here is reproduced from public federal and volunteer weather records, as the agencies and observer networks that publish them released it. Titan Weather compiles the record; it does not observe the weather, and it is not affiliated with any source it cites.

No archive holds everything. Storms cross places where nobody is standing, instruments and observers cover some areas better than others, sources revise their records, and recent reports can take weeks to arrive and settle. Coverage also thins as the years go back: an early quiet stretch may describe who was watching rather than what the weather did. Where this page shows nothing, nothing was found in the sources searched, within the period and area it states. That is not a finding that no weather occurred.

A record sits where its source filed it. Reports made from the ground are commonly logged against a town, a landmark or an offset from one rather than the spot where the measurement was taken, so any distance shown for one carries that source's own location error. Radar detections and warning geometry are instrument-located and do not.

These pages describe the public record near a place or on a date. They do not establish what reached any particular property, and nothing here is insurance, legal or engineering advice.