F1 tornado, Table Rock, Pennsylvania, April 1, 1998

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

April 1, 1998

Touchdown

12:30 PM EST (17:30 UTC)

Path length

1.5 miles (2.4 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Adams County

Touchdown point

39.920, -77.220

Lift-off point

39.920, -77.220

Record number

55

A small tornado touched down just south of Table Rock north of Route 394, about 5 miles northeast of Gettysburg, around 12:30 pm EST on 4/1/98. The storm moved northeast for 1-1/2 miles, destroying a barn and taking down trees along a 100 yard wide path. A small chicken coop was blown away just north of Route 394 at the beginning of the damage. From there, the storm crossed open fields for 1/2 mile, picked up a horse watering trough and a bench, then blew over a fence. The tornado continued northeast, taking the roof off a barn, blowing in the barn doors on the south side of a barn, and blowing out the north side walls. A small cedar tree had been snapped off at the base and rolled north up a fence line, then hurled northeast about 30 feet. A farmhouse just northwest of the barn was undamaged. A number of trees were damaged as the tornado continued northeast to about 1-1/2 miles northeast of Table Rock. A woman at a home used as a daycare center told of hearing the warning alert on the radio and hurrying the children to the basement shortly before the storm struck.

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 10:42 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 Sterling radar (KLWX), 107 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:29 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

The live radar over the trackEvery 1998 tornado in PennsylvaniaEvery tornado in Pennsylvania since 1950Warnings in force in Pennsylvania nowThe forecast where you are

12 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.