F2 tornado, Sharpsville, Pennsylvania, November 10, 2002

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 mphthis tornado

   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

F2

Date

November 10, 2002

Touchdown

7:54 PM EST (00:54 UTC)

Path length

7.0 miles (11.3 km)

Path width

500 yards (457 m)

Deaths

1

Injuries

19

Property damage

$1.0 million

County

Mercer County

Touchdown point

41.250, -80.470

Lift-off point

41.330, -80.350

Record number

381

Starting about 7:54 PM, an F2 tornado touched down near Trout Island Road, east of Sharpsville. The tornado traveled northeast at 50 mph, crossed Route 18, then ripped into Clark. It crossed Shenango River Lake and tracked to New Hamburg, where it dissipated 8:02 PM. The tornado path was 7 miles long, about 500 yards wide at its maximum, in the town of Clark. Maximum winds estimated 155 mph. Majority of damage and all injuries occurred in Clark. Fifteen homes completely destroyed, 13 major damage, 29 had minor damage. One business destroyed; 1 suffered major damage. A large number of trees were snapped or toppled. Large truck was overturned. One van was thrown across Route 258. Several other vehicles were moved by the tornado or suffered considerable damage. Strongest tornado in Mercer county since May 31,1985.

The deaths

1 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.

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

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.

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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:23 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.

Youngstown (YNG), 22 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Pittsburgh radar (KPBZ), 86 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:55 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 2002 tornado in PennsylvaniaEvery tornado in Pennsylvania since 1950Warnings in force in Pennsylvania nowThe forecast where you are

63 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 64 of them

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.