Tornadoes · United States · Pennsylvania · 1998

F0 tornado, Vintondale to Nanty Glo, Pennsylvania, June 30, 1998

From Vintondale to Nanty Glo, this F0 tornado ran 5.0 miles across Cambria County on June 30, 1998, touching down at 4:05 PM EDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody.

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.

  1. F040 to 72 mphthis tornado

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

  2. F173 to 112 mph

    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.

The record

Rating
F0
Date
June 30, 1998
Touchdown
4:05 PM EDT (20:05 UTC)
Path length
5.0 miles (8.0 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Cambria County
Touchdown point
40.480, -78.900
Lift-off point
40.480, -78.830
Record number
1335

What the Weather Service recorded

A small F0 tornado embedded in a larger area of downburst tree damage extended from the community of Vintondale east along Route 271 to Nanty Glo. Width of the tornado damage was only about 50 yards, with downburst damage as wide as 1/2-mile in spots across the two towns. Eyewitnesses told of seeing a rotating funnel in both locations, and in Vintondale a man watched as his patio grill was lifted off the deck and spun over his roof. One home in Wintondale was significantly damaged when an uprooted tree toppled onto the structure. A fire chief in Nanty Glo described watching a rotating cloud from a high vantage point as the trees were downed on Lincoln Avenue.

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

The warnings

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

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
19:33 UTC21:00 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningCTP

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 forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 11:01 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 air that afternoon

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, PA (KPIT), 12:00Z

8.1 hours before the tornado, 105 km from the path. June 30, 1998.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Pittsburgh, PA at 12:00Z on 1998-06-30Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 222 joules per kilogram, CIN -25, lifted condensation level 523 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Pittsburgh, PA at 12:00Z on 1998-06-30The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 249 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 45 knots.1939587897Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
222 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-25 J/kg
Surface CAPE
529 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
523 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
45 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
37 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
249 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
251 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.2
Supercell composite
2.5
0-3 km lapse rate
4.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Pittsburgh, PA (KPIT), 00:00Z

3.9 hours after it, 105 km from the path. July 1, 1998.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Pittsburgh, PA at 00:00Z on 1998-07-01Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -83418, lifted condensation level 1065 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Pittsburgh, PA at 00:00Z on 1998-07-01The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 47 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 47 knots.1939587897Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-83418 J/kg
Surface CAPE
99 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1065 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
47 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
32 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
47 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
96 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The State College radar (KCCX), 88 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:05 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.

This ground now

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

The other tornadoes of June 30, 1998

12 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
June 302:05 AM EDTF0Charlotte, FL0.130
June 303:09 AM CDTF1Davidson, TN1.2100$20,000
June 308:15 AM EDTF1Suffolk, NY0.3300
June 308:20 AM EDTF0Suffolk, NY0.1100
June 3010:45 AM EDTF0Tuscola, MI0.130$10,000
June 302:15 PM EDTF0Erie, OH0.130
June 303:15 PM CDTF0Meeker, MN0.530
June 304:25 PM EDTF1Somerset, PA0.270
June 308:30 PM EDTF1Lower Connecticut River Valley Planning Region, CT0.130
June 308:30 PM EDTF1Southeastern Connecticut Planning Region, CT0.130
June 308:40 PM EDTF1Suffolk, NY0.380
June 308:45 PM EDTF0Lower Connecticut River Valley Planning Region, CT0.130

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.