EF1 tornado, Piketown, Pennsylvania, June 27, 2018

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 27, 2018

Touchdown

12:45 AM EDT (04:45 UTC)

Lifted

12:47 AM EDT (04:47 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.6 miles (2.5 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Dauphin County

Touchdown point

40.387, -76.753

Lift-off point

40.402, -76.731

Record number

1806272245-01

29 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS CTP, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 100 mph.

• Many trees down in a convergent pattern
• Multiple trees with damage direction 340 to 0 deg
• Many trees down in convergent pattern
• Damage directions convergent, trees laying E and NE

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

An EF1 tornado was confirmed by a NWS survey team to have touched down in east-central Dauphin County. The path length was approximately 1.6 miles, with a path width of 100 yards and a maximum wind speed of 100 mph. The tornado began at the intersection of Piketown Road and Appalachian Trail and ended 200 yards west of the Full Gospel Mission Church on Fishing Creek Valley Road. Hundreds of trees were snapped and uprooted along its path. The downed trees caused damage to the roofs of 4 homes, as well as several sheds.

An EF-1 tornado touched down near Piketown in Dauphin Count. The tornado had a path length of approximately 1.6 miles and a max path width of approximately 100 yards. Max winds were estimated around 100 mph. Hundreds of trees were uprooted or snapped, and downed trees caused damage to the roofs of 4 homes and several sheds.

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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:58 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 State College radar (KCCX), 122 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:42 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 2018 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.