Tornadoes · United States · Pennsylvania · 2002
F0 tornado, Crossingville, Pennsylvania, July 27, 2002
This F0 tornado ran 3.0 miles across Crawford County on July 27, 2002, touching down at 6:03 PM EDT and reaching 25 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $50,000 of property damage.
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.
F040 to 72 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- July 27, 2002
- Touchdown
- 6:03 PM EDT (22:03 UTC)
- Path length
- 3.0 miles (4.8 km)
- Path width
- 25 yards (23 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $50,000
- County
- Crawford County
- Touchdown point
- 41.830, -80.250
- Lift-off point
- 41.830, -80.250
- Record number
- 216
What the Weather Service recorded
A small F0 tornado touched down a mile and a half southwest of Crossingville. The tornado then moved northeast along a path approximately three miles in length. The damage path was intermittent along it's entire length. Several dozen trees were downed.
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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21:42 UTC | 22:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | CLE |
| 22:07 UTC | 23:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | CLE |
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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:01 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.
What forecasters said that day
The local office's own words before the tornado touched down, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.
NWS Cleveland, OH wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Jul 27, 2:45 PM EDT, 3 hours 18 minutes earlier.
Area forecast discussion, Jul 27, 2:45 PM EDT, 3 hours 18 minutes before
AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE CLEVELAND OH 245 PM EDT SAT JUL 27 2002 UNSETTLED IWX TO CONT AS SCT SHRA AND TSRA CONT TO DVLP IN AN ARND FA. 12Z ETA BRINGS NICE VORT ACRS NRN 1/2 OF FA LATER TGNT. SUM 3H DIV AS WELL WITH PWATS NR 2 INCH OVRNGT. WL GO WITH LIKELY POPS NERN 1/2 OF FA WITH SCT WORDG ELSWHERE. ATMOSPHERE RMNS UNSTABLE ON SUN BUT LTTL IN THE WAY OF CONV NR SFC. GIVEN BIG CAPES WL HANG ON TO SMALL CHC POPS. WK LO PRES TO DVLP OVR LWR OH VLY TMRW NGT WITH ANOTHER BNDRY TO MOV N ACRS FA. CDNFT TRAILING THIS LOW WL APPROACH FM THE NW LT MON SO WL NEED TO CONT WITH CHC WORDG BOTH SUN NGT AND MON WITH BETTER PRECIP CHCS MON AFT. GUID TEMPS LK GOOD AND WL BE MAKING ONLY MINOR CHGS. LOT/S OF CLDS THRU THE PD. .CLE... OH...NONE. PA...NONE. KUBINA
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
10.1 hours before the tornado, 158 km from the path. July 27, 2002.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 502 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -26 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1053 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 748 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 13 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 3 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 23 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 69 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.0 K/km
Pittsburgh, PA (KPIT), 00:00Z
1.9 hours after it, 158 km from the path. July 28, 2002.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 383 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -25 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1399 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 876 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 28 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 15 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 103 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 156 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.1
- Supercell composite
- 1.9
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.0 K/km
The surface observations
Meadville (GKJ), 23 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20:53 UTC | 82 | 71 | 230° 8 kt | 1013.5 | ||
| 21:53 UTC | 80 | 72 | 230° 8 kt | 1013.2 | ||
| 22:06 UTC | 78.8 | 71.6 | 250° 11 kt | 1013.5 | VCTS | |
| 22:36 UTC | 75.2 | 73.4 | 250° 8 kt | 1013.9 | -RA | |
| 22:53 UTC | 74 | 73 | 330° 4 kt | 1013.9 | -RA | |
| 23:05 UTC | 73.4 | 73.4 | 3 kt | 1013.5 | -RA | |
| 23:53 UTC | 73 | 72 | 0° 0 kt | 1013.9 |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Cleveland radar (KCLE), 142 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:02 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 2002 tornado in PennsylvaniaEvery tornado in Pennsylvania since 1950Warnings in force in Pennsylvania nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of July 27, 2002
2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
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.