EF0 tornado, Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, May 15, 2014

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 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. EF3136 to 165 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. EF5over 200 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

EF0

Date

May 15, 2014

Touchdown

7:03 PM EDT (23:03 UTC)

Lifted

7:04 PM EDT (23:04 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$5,000

County

Clinton County

Touchdown point

41.133, -77.431

Lift-off point

41.137, -77.428

Record number

1405151703-01

7 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS CTP, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 76 mph.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

Thunderstorms over the northern Virginia and Maryland Piedmont expanded northward into the ridge-valley region in south-central Pennsylvania during the evening. These storms were located within a conveyor of strong/moist southerly deep-layer flow. A convective environment characterized by weak instability, high surface dewpoints/low LCLs and strong low-level shear fostered a brief/weak EF0 tornado near Lock Haven in Clinton County. Isolated/localized wind damage also occurred within a few low-topped bowing segments.

The National Weather Service in State College confirmed an EF0 Tornado near Lock Haven in Clinton County Pennsylvania on May 15, 2014. ||The EF0 tornado touched down near the southern-most point of Race Street just southwest of the William T. Piper Memorial Airport. The weak tornado pealed back a portion of a roof of a warehouse and partially lifted the roof, allowing portions of an exterior wall to collapse outward. The tornado traveled northward along Racy Street, toppling a chimney and lifting a carport and throwing it 25 yards into another house. The tornado then turned to the northeast and crossed Route 15, knocking over several large trees and snapping a number of large limbs. The tornado dissipated near East Water Street between Race street and Clark Barn Road. The tornado was rated an EF0 tornado with maximum winds around 75 mph. There were no injuries or deaths.

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.

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, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:51 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.

Williamsport (IPT), 44 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The State College radar (KCCX), 54 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:03 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.

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

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

The live radar over the trackEvery 2014 tornado in PennsylvaniaEvery tornado in Pennsylvania since 1950Warnings in force in Pennsylvania nowThe forecast where you are

4 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.