F1 tornado, Hugos Corners, Pennsylvania, July 1, 1999

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

July 1, 1999

Touchdown

7:30 PM EDT (23:30 UTC)

Path length

5.0 miles (8.0 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$200,000

County

Sullivan County

Touchdown point

41.520, -76.670

Lift-off point

41.570, -76.600

Record number

749

An F1 tornado touched down in Elkland township about two miles northwest of Lincoln Falls on route 154, then moved northeast through a crossroads near Eldredsville to Hugo corners. Trees were blown down as the storm crossed route 154. Just west of McCarty Ridge Road a group of campers narrowly missed injury when a stand of trees were blown over near their site. The heaviest damage was along McCarty Ridge Road near the town of Eldredsville. A well built older home was lifted just slightly on its foundation. The occupants told of seeing a cloud of dust appear as they watched from their basement. A barn nearby was leveled. The roof flew off a sawmill and landed largely intact about 100 feet northwest of the mill. Several other homes had some structural damage and one had shingles removed from a roof. A travel trailer was overturned and an outdoor shed was destroyed. A couple mobile homes were damaged by debris, but were not moved off their foundations. Tree damage was sporadic along the path with a number of trees down in the Hugo Corners area near the end of the path.

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

40 minutes of warning. NWS CTP issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:50 UTC, 40 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:45 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:58 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), 91 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:27 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 1999 tornado in PennsylvaniaEvery tornado in Pennsylvania since 1950Warnings in force in Pennsylvania nowThe forecast where you are

7 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.