F1 tornado, Fair Hill, Maryland, May 25, 1997

1. F040 to 72 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. F173 to 112 mphthis tornado

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. F2113 to 157 mph

   Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

4. F3158 to 206 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. F4207 to 260 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. F5261 to 318 mph

   Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

7. Unrated

   The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

Rating

F1

Date

May 25, 1997

Touchdown

7:20 PM EDT (23:20 UTC)

Path length

0.5 miles (0.8 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$250,000

County

Cecil County

Touchdown point

39.700, -75.870

Lift-off point

39.700, -75.870

Record number

323

An F1 (Fujita Scale) tornado touched down in Fair Hill at about 720 p.m. EDT and damaged four homes - two severely, overturned tombstones and damaged or uprooted hundreds of trees. Property damage was estimated at $250,000. No injuries occurred.The tornado touched down over farmland near the Foxcatcher Development and moved eastward paralleling Maryland State Route 273. It remained on the ground for about half a mile before lifting over the Fair Hill Nature Center. The worst damage occurred to a log home on Maryland State Route 213. Its second story sun room was destroyed by two fallen trees. Damage also occurred to its deck and roof. The owner estimated that nearly 95 percent of the trees on the property were either damaged or destroyed. Most of the trees were 80 to 100 feet tall. Damage also occurred to several homes on Hunt Valley Road. One home had two trees on it and its siding embedded in a tree. The tornado also moved over Sharpes Cemetery and overturned about 100 tombstones and tore down a section of its black wrought-iron fence. About 1,600 homes lost power due to the fallen trees. At its maximum strength in the cemetery and around the log home, the tornado winds were estimated near the high end of the F1 Fujita scale at about 100 mph.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:51 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

Wilmington Airport (ILG), 23 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The live radar over the trackEvery 1997 tornado in MarylandEvery tornado in Maryland since 1950Warnings in force in Maryland nowThe forecast where you are

52 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.