Tornadoes · United States · Pennsylvania · 2004

F2 tornado, Custards, Pennsylvania, May 25, 2004

This F2 tornado ran 7.0 miles across Crawford County on May 25, 2004, touching down at 5:15 PM EDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $3.5 million 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.

  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.

The record

Rating
F2
Date
May 25, 2004
Touchdown
5:15 PM EDT (21:15 UTC)
Path length
7.0 miles (11.3 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$3.5 million
County
Crawford County
Touchdown point
41.530, -80.170
Lift-off point
41.520, -80.050
Record number
168

What the Weather Service recorded

An F2 tornado touched down three miles west of Custards and then tracked east for seven miles. The tornado finally lifted just west of Cochranton near U.S Highway 322. The damage path was continuous, up to 50 yards in width and roughly parallel to State Route 285. Significant damage occurred along the damage path. At least ten homes were damaged with two large farm buildings destroyed. Two factories west of Custards along Delano Road were also heavily damaged. One factory lost over 16,000 square feet of roofing and had much of it's inventory destroyed. The second factory was also heavily damaged on one side. Twelve semi trailers parked outside this factory were overturned and destroyed. Several dozen workers inside the factories had sought shelter prior to the arrival of the tornado and were uninjured. Hundreds of trees and dozens of power poles were downed along the damage path.

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

The warnings

14 minutes of warning. NWS CLE issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:01 UTC, 14 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:45 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
21:01 UTC21:45 UTCTornado WarningCLE

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 20:00 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

9.3 hours before the tornado, 124 km from the path. May 25, 2004.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Pittsburgh, PA at 12:00Z on 2004-05-25Temperature 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 -75966, lifted condensation level 1145 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 12:00Z on 2004-05-25The 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 139 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 24 knots.193958Sfc1 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
-75966 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1145 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
24 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
28 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
139 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
131 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
2.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Pittsburgh, PA (KPIT), 00:00Z

2.7 hours after it, 124 km from the path. May 26, 2004.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Pittsburgh, PA at 00:00Z on 2004-05-26Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1600 joules per kilogram, CIN -7, lifted condensation level 1097 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 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 2004-05-26The 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 124 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 44 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
1600 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-7 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2282 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1097 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
44 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
19 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
124 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
170 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
1.0
Supercell composite
6.5
0-3 km lapse rate
6.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Meadville (GKJ), 14 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
19:53 UTC7266190° 8 kt1008.5
20:53 UTC7367 5 kt1007.1
21:53 UTC7468240° 7 kt1007.5
22:53 UTC7467290° 10 kt1007.8

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

The radar

The Pittsburgh radar (KPBZ), 111 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:15 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.

What was reported nearby

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

Time (UTC)ReportWhereCountyRemark
21:27 UTCTSTM WND DMGJamestownMercer, PALARGE TREES BLOWN DOWN.
22:15 UTCHAIL 0.758 N Oil CityVenango, PA
00:05 UTCHAIL 0.755 E Oil CityVenango, PA

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2004 tornado in PennsylvaniaEvery tornado in Pennsylvania since 1950Warnings in force in Pennsylvania nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 25, 2004

10 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 255:37 PM EDTF1Washington, MD1.5100$250,000
May 255:56 PM EDTF0Frederick, MD0.550
May 256:10 PM EDTF0Venango, PA0.3100
May 255:23 PM CDTF0Franklin, IL0.550
May 255:45 PM CDTF0Scurry, TX2.050
May 256:49 PM EDTF0Loudoun, VA0.550$1,000
May 255:55 PM CDTF0Bollinger, MO0.550
May 256:45 PM CDTF0Mitchell, TX1.2125
May 257:12 PM CDTF0Mitchell, TX0.175
May 2511:25 PM EDTF1Lancaster, VA0.110$20,000

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.