Tornado in Pennsylvania, August 16, 1997

Name: Tornado in Pennsylvania, August 16, 1997
Start: 1997-08-16T17:30
End: 1997-08-16T17:30
Location: Pennsylvania

August 16, 1997 · NWS CLE · 1 event in 1 county or zone

1 tornado, as filed by the National Weather Service.

Where it happened

Every event with a place to put it. Tap one for its entry below.

Tornadoes
Tropical storms and surge
Floods
Wind
Hail
Winter weather
Heat and drought
Cold
Fire, smoke and dust
Marine and coastal
Other

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The toll

Deaths: 0
Injuries: 0
Property damage: $500,000
Crop damage: $3,000
Events: 1

Deaths and injuries are direct and indirect together, as the offices filed them. Damage is property and crops in the dollars of the year, not adjusted for inflation, and only where an office estimated it.

The radar

The Buffalo radar (KBUF), 148 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the first event began at 22:29 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment

Event by event

1 tornado. Local standard time, as filed.

Tornado, Erie

When: August 16, 5:30 PM EST
Where: Erie County, Union City
Rating: F2
Path length: 2 mi
Path width: 100 yd
Property damage: $500,000
Crop damage: $3,000
Coordinates: 41.900, -79.850

A tornado touched down and skipped along its path for several minutes. Twenty mobile homes were damaged and one was destroyed at the Maple Heights Trailer Court. A sixty by eighty foot block building was destroyed. Three houses and one business were damaged. A cornfield was flattened and several trees were downed.

What these are

Tornado: A violently rotating column of air in contact with the ground and extending from a thunderstorm, filed with its path, width and Fujita or Enhanced Fujita rating from the damage survey.

After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.

The same day elsewhere

Every storm in Pennsylvania in 1997 Every state in 1997 This day in weather history The tornado archive for Pennsylvania, 1997 Warnings in Pennsylvania, August 1997

Sources

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, compiled from the National Weather Service’s monthly Storm Data. Complete through 2026-06; NCEI adds each month about 75 days after it ends and revises past years a few times a year. Rebuilt 2026-09-24. Each event’s entry at NCEI: 5617371.