F1 tornado, Carnegie to Manor, Pennsylvania, June 2, 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

June 2, 1998

Touchdown

5:55 PM EDT (21:55 UTC)

Path length

32.0 miles (51.5 km)

Path width

700 yards (640 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

50

Property damage

$13 million

Counties

Allegheny and Westmoreland counties

Touchdown point

40.470, -80.150

Lift-off point

40.300, -79.630

Record number

1219

An F1 tornado touched down 5 miles northwest of Carnegie in Allegheny County and moved east-southeast across the southern and eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh into Westmoreland County. The total path length of this tornado was estimated to be 32 miles, and damage was reported in Mount Washington, Hazelwood, and Rankin in Allegheny County. As the tornado passed over a concrete railroad overpass about 2 miles north of Baldwin, it blew several railroad cars onto their sides. The tornado continued into Westmoreland county, moving through the towns of Irwin and Manor. The Mount Washington area, located just south of downtown Pittsburgh, sustained the majority of damage, along with all of the minor injuries. Property damage in the Mount Washington area included roofs blown off buildings, brick walls torn down, and other major structural damage. Over 1000 structures, mostly in the immediate Pittsburgh area, reported some sort of damage. Other than the damage on Mount Wahington, most of the damage was minor, produced as the result of tree damage from falling trees or tree limbs.

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

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.

Pittsburgh/Alleghen (AGC), 4 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Pittsburgh radar (KPBZ), 32 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:57 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

36 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.