EF1 tornado, Suplee, Pennsylvania, June 30, 2015

1. EF065 to 85 mph

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

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

   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

EF1

Date

June 30, 2015

Touchdown

2:11 PM EDT (18:11 UTC)

Lifted

2:13 PM EDT (18:13 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.7 miles (1.1 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$250,000

County

Chester County

Touchdown point

40.116, -75.887

Lift-off point

40.124, -75.879

Record number

1506301211-01

12 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS PHI, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 101 mph.

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

Strong to severe thunderstorms that produced damaging winds, large hail and a tornado affected Eastern Pennsylvania from the middle of the afternoon into the early evening on the 30th. Hardest hit were the Lehigh Valley which experienced a strong microburst and Chester County which experienced a tornado. A state of emergency was declared in Whitehall Township (Lehigh County). Pennsylvania Power and Light reported about 11,000 of its customers lost power in the Lehigh Valley. Hardest hit by power outages included Whitehall and Catasauqua in Lehigh County and Hanover Township east through Lower Nazareth Township in Northampton County. First Energy reported 4,000 of its customers lost power in Northampton County. Power was not fully restored until the night of July 1st. Heavy rain also caused some flash flooding in the Lehigh Valley and Poconos. The most severe thunderstorms formed near a warm frontal boundary that slowly lifted northeast on the 30th.

An EF-1 tornado touched down in Honey Brook Township. No injuries were reported, although several homes as well as numerous trees were damaged. The tornado touched down near Given Road and moved northeast lifting near Talbotville Road. Roof panels were torn from one home. A mobile home was unseated from its moorings. Two uninjured people were trapped within the mobile home and had to be rescued by the local fire department. A barn along Talbotville Road had its roof torn off and wall damaged during the storm. Farmstands were damaged along Talbotville Road. Numerous trees were uprooted or snapped along the damage path. Debris was scattered across roadways and farm fields and included pieces of tin roofs as well as insulation. Several roads were impassable because of downed trees and power lines. The path length was approximately 0.7 of a mile, the maximum path width was estimated to be 100 yards and the estimated peak wind gust was 95 mph.

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

11 minutes of warning. NWS PHI issued a tornado warning for this county at 18:00 UTC, 11 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 18:30 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 17:23 UTC and running to 00:00 UTC.

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, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:10 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.

The Philadelphia radar (KDIX), 127 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:11 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 2015 tornado in PennsylvaniaEvery tornado in Pennsylvania since 1950Warnings in force in Pennsylvania nowThe forecast where you are

3 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.