F3 tornado, Blooming Grove, Pennsylvania, May 31, 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 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 mphthis tornado

   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

F3

Date

May 31, 1998

Touchdown

8:20 PM EDT (00:20 UTC)

Path length

20.0 miles (32.2 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

2

Property damage

$1.0 million

County

Pike County

Touchdown point

41.300, -75.100

Lift-off point

41.230, -74.870

Record number

1049

An intensifying storm system moved across upstate New York and into southern Quebec early in the morning on the 31st. This system dragged a warm front across northeastern Pennsylvania. Behind this front, a southerly flow of warm, moist, and unstable air quickly developed. This set the stage for the development of severe weather later that afternoon as a cold front and strong upper air disturbance approached. From late in the afternoon until late that evening, northeastern Pennsylvania was under siege from severe thunderstorms, including several tornadic supercells. In all, nine separate tornadoes touched down on this day. Overall damage estimates run into the millions with many homes and structures heavily damaged or destroyed. The most devastating storms occurred in Pike county. Within about a 3 hour stretch from 7 to 10 pm EDT, four different twisters affected the county. One tornadic cell was responsible for knocking down thousands of healthy large trees in and around Promised Land State Park with several vacation homes damaged or leveled. Fortunately, injuries were kept at a minimum. Widespread straight line wind damage also occurred with hailstones the size of ping pong balls falling in some places. The north side of Scranton had extensive wind damage as a storm passed through shortly before 10 pm EDT and sections of Wayne and Luzerne counties had roads closed and/or blocked from falling trees for more than 2 days after the storm. Pennsylvania Power and Light Company estimated that hundreds of thousands of customers were without power at the height of the storms on the evening of the 31st. Some of the more remote locations did not have power restored for the better part of a week.

The tornadic supercell that affected southern Wayne county a bit earlier in the evening continued eastward into Pike county. A tornado touched down briefly in Promised Land and then plowed through portions of Promised Land State Park before temporarily lifting into the cloud base. The twister cut approximately a 2 mile by 500 yard path through heavily forested areas of the park. Camp sites were littered with trees as the tornado cut down hundreds of them. Some of the trees were very sizeable and they were still chopped down or twisted off quite easily as evidenced by ground and aerial post storm surveys. A few homes near the path of the twister sustained minor to moderate damage from falling trees. Fortunately, camp grounds and vacation homes were largely unoccupied when the tornado struck. The tornado appeared to be near ground level for only a few minutes as the damage path became discontinuous again just east of the park.

The cell that produced tornadic damage earlier both in southern Wayne county and just upstream in Promised Land State Park dropped a tornado once again across the southern and southeastern portions of Pike county. A nearly continuous 20 mile path was uncovered via aerial storm surveys from Pecks Pond east-southeastward to near route 739 in Delaware township. The average width of the damage path was about 200 yards. The twister descended once again in the Pecks Pond area around 8:20 pm EDT. At that point, the intensity was rated as F2 as the tornado cut down nearly every tree in its path on its way towards Blue Heron Lake. At approximately 8:30 pm, the tornado struck the small vacation community surrounding Blue Heron Lake. A summer home was leveled by the force of the twister. The only things left standing were an interior wall and a few sturdy metal cabinets on the floor in the kitchen. An adjacent mobile home was severely damaged as well. Two campers near this area had minor injuries from falling tree limbs. Otherwise, though, injuries were kept to a minimum as homes were mostly vacant. In addition, an estimated thousands of trees were sheared off or toppled bordering Blue Heron Lake both to the west and east. The twister's intensity increased at this point to F3. Further downstream, the tornado continued to cut a consistent path of twisted off and/or uprooted trees across the Little Mud Pond, Silver Lake, and Deer Leap Factory areas. The tornado appeared to skip across hilltop sections along this route with its intensity mainly in the F1 range. Finally, just before 8:45 pm EDT, the tornado ascended once again in Delaware township as little in the way of damage was evident between route 739 and the Delaware River. In all, emergency management and federal officials estimated that in excess of 1 million dollars damage was incurred along this approximately 20 mile path. Many roads were closed as they became impassable due to fallen trees and wires. Portions of routes 402 and 390 were closed for several days. In addition, sections of Promised Land State Park were closed off to the public for about two weeks until all debris was cleared away and power was restored.

A severe thunderstorm became tornadic just south of Interstate 84 and east of Tarey Hill in Blooming Grove township around 8:20 pm EDT. The tornado cut approximately a 3 mile by 200 yard path paralleling Interstate 84. The twister moved through heavily forested areas and mowed down hundreds of trees in its path. Again, many of the trees were quite sizeable and appeared to be toppled easily. The damage pattern was circular in spots as viewed by aerial surveys. Fortunately, little in the way of houses or populated regions were in the path of this particular tornado. The tornado's intensity seemed to fluctuate between F1 and F2. The tornado lifted back up just east of route 739 near Cranberry Ridge as little in the way of damage was seen downstream of this point. Several local roads were closed for up to 24 hours from fallen trees.

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

16 minutes of warning. NWS BGM issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:04 UTC, 16 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:10 UTC.

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 Moderate Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 10:32 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 Binghamton radar (KBGM), 133 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:32 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

45 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.