Tornadoes · United States · Pennsylvania · 2005
F1 tornado, Brockway, Pennsylvania, June 15, 2005
This F1 tornado ran 0.5 miles across Jefferson County on June 15, 2005, touching down at 6:35 PM EDT and reaching 100 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $150,000 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 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mphthis tornado
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
- F1
- Date
- June 15, 2005
- Touchdown
- 6:35 PM EDT (22:35 UTC)
- Path length
- 0.5 miles (0.8 km)
- Path width
- 100 yards (91 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $150,000
- County
- Jefferson County
- Touchdown point
- 41.250, -78.800
- Lift-off point
- 41.270, -78.800
- Record number
- 201
What the Weather Service recorded
About 635 PM EDT, an F-1 tornado touched down just north of Brockway. Many trees were snapped off. A few houses had damage to siding and shingles. Furniture factory in the industrial park suffered major damage: Most of the metal roof was ripped off. Steel beams were twisted and thrown about. In a smaller building next to the factory, the walls were buckled. Many people saw the tornado from a distance. One woman remained in her car while the tornado passed so close to her, it lifted the back of the car and moved it. Path length half mile. Maximum width 100 yards. Max wind 100 mph (87 kts).
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.
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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:29 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
10.6 hours before the tornado, 145 km from the path. June 15, 2005.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 50 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -12 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 152 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 817 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 54 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 24 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 102 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 166 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.1
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.1 K/km
Pittsburgh, PA (KPIT), 00:00Z
1.4 hours after it, 145 km from the path. June 16, 2005.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 52 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -15 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 271 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1243 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 33 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 17 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 79 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 61 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.1
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 7.3 K/km
The radar
The State College radar (KCCX), 77 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:35 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) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22:35 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Brockway | Jefferson, PA | POSSIBLE TORNADO. TREES DOWN. WIRES DOWN. ROOF BLOWN OFF. INDUSTRIAL PARK ROAD IN BROCKWAY. |
| 22:35 UTC | TORNADO | Brockway | Jefferson, PA | F1 TORNADO,PATH LENGTH /0.5/ MILES, WIDTH 100 YDS, MAX EST WINDS CLOSE TO 100 MPH |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2005 tornado in PennsylvaniaEvery tornado in Pennsylvania since 1950Warnings in force in Pennsylvania nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 15, 2005
4 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.