Tornadoes · United States · Pennsylvania · 1993
F0 tornado, Troxelville, Pennsylvania, April 16, 1993
This F0 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Snyder County on April 16, 1993, touching down at 8:45 PM EDT and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $5,000 to $50,000 of property damage.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
F040 to 72 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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.
The record
- Rating
- F0
- Date
- April 16, 1993
- Touchdown
- 8:45 PM EDT (00:45 UTC)
- Path length
- 0.2 miles (0.3 km)
- Path width
- 30 yards (27 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $5,000 to $50,000
- County
- Snyder County
- Touchdown point
- 40.800, -77.250
- Record number
- 140
What the Weather Service recorded
Damage was mainly sustained by two structures and many trees. A building which was used as shelter for lambs and cows was about two-thirds destroyed. Most of the building was lifted from the ground and deposited downwind from the site up to a few hundred yards. Pieces of wood and sheet metal were found driven into trees left standing behind the building and house. Some debris was carried up a hill downwind from the tornado and deposited a few hundred yards away. A shed-type structure on the left side of the tornado path was partially ripped away and deposited 20 to 40 yards to the west in a field. A clump of trees 20 to 30 yards wide behind the property was also leveled.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The surface observations
Selinsgrove (SEG), 33 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:00 UTC |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 1993 tornado in PennsylvaniaEvery tornado in Pennsylvania since 1950Warnings in force in Pennsylvania nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of April 16, 1993
8 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 16 | 8:30 AM EDT | F1 | Fauquier, VA | 1.2 | 80 | $50,000 to $500,000 | ||
| April 16 | 9:00 AM EDT | F0 | Vance, NC | 0.2 | 10 | $50,000 to $500,000 | ||
| April 16 | 3:00 PM EDT | F1 | Queen Anne's, MD | 0.5 | 33 | $5,000 to $50,000 | ||
| April 16 | 3:20 PM EDT | F1 | Luzerne, PA | 2.1 | 400 | $50,000 to $500,000 | ||
| April 16 | 8:25 PM EDT | F0 | Loudoun, VA | 0.7 | 30 | $500 to $5,000 | ||
| April 16 | 8:35 PM EDT | F1 | Loudoun, VA | 1.7 | 60 | $50,000 to $500,000 | ||
| April 16 | 9:00 PM EDT | F0 | Fauquier, VA | 0.8 | 50 | $500 to $5,000 | ||
| April 16 | 9:40 PM EDT | F1 | Northumberland, PA | 0.2 | 30 | $5,000 to $50,000 |
What this means
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.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.