EF2 tornado, Lemasters to Edenville, Pennsylvania, April 19, 2019

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 mph

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

3. EF2111 to 135 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. 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

EF2

Date

April 19, 2019

Touchdown

7:10 PM EDT (23:10 UTC)

Lifted

7:12 PM EDT (23:12 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

2.9 miles (4.7 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Franklin County

Touchdown point

39.904, -77.847

Lift-off point

39.937, -77.811

Record number

1904191710-01

26 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS CTP, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 122 mph.

• • Substantial structure damage to commercial buildings. Roof and wood framing for roof on top of second story produce store building. Roof of storage building behind this and roof and side of Commercial Storage/Refrigerated Building.
• Roof ripped off barn. Pieces from buildings was carried over 0.5 mile down the path. Quite a bit of insulation was also on south side of Route 30 from C&R Produce
• Plastic covering torn off of metal frame structure
• Roof of trailer home was removed and landed due west of the home. Insulation strewn in cyclonic pattern. Trees uprooted and snapped in crisscross pattern.

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

The NWS confirmed that an EF2 tornado occurred near Saint Thomas in Franklin County on April 19, 2019. The maximum wind speed was 125 mph, with a maximum path width of 75 yards and a path length of just under 3 miles.

A National Weather Service storm survey confirmed an EF-2 tornado near near St. Thomas in Franklin County Pennsylvania on April 19, 2019.||The initial and most intense (EF-2) damage occurred at C & R Produce just north of U.S. Route 30. Several power poles were snapped. There was also significant damage to commercial buildings on the C & R property. The tornado damage continued north-northeast along Apple Way with numerous uprooted/snapped trees including nearby orchards. Several residential homes and commercial buildings/garages were also damaged near Summerswood Drive. Maximum winds were estimated at 125 mph.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 22:34 UTC and running to 02:08 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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:54 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 Sterling radar (KLWX), 109 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:08 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 2019 tornado in PennsylvaniaEvery tornado in Pennsylvania since 1950Warnings in force in Pennsylvania nowThe forecast where you are

44 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.