F1 tornado, Renovo, Pennsylvania, May 19, 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 19, 1997

Touchdown

6:45 PM EDT (22:45 UTC)

Path length

5.0 miles (8.0 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Clinton County

Touchdown point

41.330, -77.770

Lift-off point

41.330, -77.770

Record number

251

2W. Renovo to 3E. RenovoAn F1 tornado (73-112 mph) moved through the town of Renovo between 6:45 p.m. and 6:50 p.m. EDT on the evening of Monday, May 19, 1997. Hundreds of trees were downed; the roofs of a hotel, a supermarket, a home and several other structures were damaged. A tin roof was peeled off a railroad car maintenance building now being used as an industrial development center. Eyewitnesses reported seeing the funnel cloud and people talked of seeing rotation in the debris.Sporadic damage associated with the storm extended along a path of nearly 15 miles beginning around Bitumen west of Renovo, continued through Renovo east to Farwell. width of the damage was up to 1/4 mile in spots, but the tornado damage was probably confined to only a small portion of the path. Damage was confined to the lower elevations of the river valley from the north facing slopes of the mountains into the valley floor.

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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:32 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.

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

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

3 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.