Alert archive / Pennsylvania

Weather alerts in Chester County, Pennsylvania

4,627 weather alerts since 1986, from the National Weather Service and the Storm Prediction Center. An alert counts here when it covered this county.

Chester County and its neighbors

Each county as a circle sized by its count since 1986. Tap one for its archive.

Alerts
4,627
Warnings
1,686
Watches
610
Advisories
944
Busiest year
2019302 alerts
Average year
116over 40 years on file

Over time

By year

Before late 2005 the archive holds only tornado, severe thunderstorm, flash flood and marine warnings, and from 1997 SPC's watches, so the jump that year is the archive widening, not the weather.

By month of the year

Warning verification

How often warnings here had a storm report inside them, and how much warning the reports had.

From 2008 to 2025, 75% of tornado reports in Chester County fell inside a tornado warning issued on average 4 minutes before, and 89% of the tornado warnings had no report inside them.

Tornado warnings by year

WarningsWith a reportFalse alarm ratioReportsInside a warningMean lead time
200930100%0
201010100%10%
201120100%0
201310100%0
20154175%1100%11 min
201720100%0
201830100%0
201930100%0
20204175%0
20212150%1100%2 min
202310190%1100%0 min
202520100%0
Share of tornado reports inside a tornado warning, by year.

Severe thunderstorm warnings by year

WarningsWith a reportFalse alarm ratioReportsInside a warningMean lead time
2008271352%1377%37 min
2009312423%8100%34 min
2010352529%1587%29 min
2011322619%1385%26 min
2012211910%1392%24 min
2013191616%1164%25 min
2014211624%1759%36 min
2015321941%1164%24 min
2016231726%1878%14 min
2017352820%1275%31 min
2018251540%1883%24 min
2019595212%8990%29 min
2020645022%14790%29 min
2021443423%9688%24 min
2022292031%1984%27 min
2023543731%4779%21 min
2024302323%3892%24 min
2025382534%3388%22 min

Flash flood warnings by year

WarningsWith a reportFalse alarm ratioReportsInside a warningMean lead time
20087186%0
200913562%3100%40 min
201020100%0
2011110100%0
20124250%2100%37 min
20137443%5100%122 min
20145420%367%65 min
20157357%0
2016220%0
20174175%3100%123 min
2018161038%1493%82 min
2019201335%1694%123 min
2020131023%34100%95 min
202113931%7397%118 min
20224325%3100%33 min
2023191047%2085%82 min
20248275%683%57 min
2025201430%2997%95 min

Years from 2008, the first full year of storm-based warnings. The year still running is on its own page.

Verified by the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's Cow, which matches each storm-based warning with the local storm reports inside its polygon while it was in force, within 15 km of its edge: a tornado warning counts as verified on a tornado report, a severe thunderstorm warning on hail of 1 inch or more, a gust of 58 mph or more, or wind damage, a flash flood warning on a flash flood report. The false alarm ratio is the share of warnings with no such report; "inside a warning" is the probability of detection, the share of reports that fell inside one; lead time runs from the warning's issue to each report inside it, counting zero for a report that came first. A warning with no report is not proof nothing happened: reports come from spotters, the public and damage surveys, and are thin where few people live.

By product

Every kind of product issued here, grouped by hazard. Each opens the same place narrowed to that product.

The latest warnings

The most recent on file, newest first.

IssuedProductOfficeLasted
Sep 3, 8:09 AM EDTRiver Flood WarningPHI3 hr
Sep 3, 5:26 AM EDTAreal Flood WarningPHI4 hr
Sep 3, 1:34 AM EDTFlash Flood WarningPHI4 hr
Sep 2, 12:40 PM EDTSevere Thunderstorm WarningPHI65 min
Sep 1, 8:44 PM EDTFlash Flood WarningPHI3 hr
Sep 1, 8:17 PM EDTSevere Thunderstorm WarningPHI58 min
Sep 1, 7:43 PM EDTSevere Thunderstorm WarningPHI47 min
Sep 1, 7:13 PM EDTSevere Thunderstorm WarningPHI47 min
Sep 1, 6:56 PM EDTSevere Thunderstorm WarningPHI49 min
Aug 30, 10:04 PM EDTFlash Flood WarningPHI4 hr
Aug 27, 10:36 PM EDTFlash Flood WarningPHI3 hr
Aug 27, 10:22 PM EDTSevere Thunderstorm WarningPHI38 min

Nearby

Alerts in force nowTornadoes on recordForecastThe radar archive

Sources

National Weather Service watches, warnings, advisories and statements from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's VTEC archive, which reconstructs tornado, severe thunderstorm, flash flood and marine warnings back to 1986 from the NWS text archive. Storm Prediction Center watches and mesoscale discussions from SPC's archive through the Mesonet. County centers from the US Census Bureau. Warning verification from the Mesonet's Cow. Rebuilt daily.