EF1 tornado, Sharon to Farrell, Pennsylvania, June 16, 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 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 16, 2019

Touchdown

5:03 PM EDT (21:03 UTC)

Lifted

5:05 PM EDT (21:05 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.1 miles (1.8 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Mercer County

Touchdown point

41.227, -80.519

Lift-off point

41.222, -80.498

Record number

1906161503-01

6 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS CLE, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 95 mph.

• tree uprooted and fell onto house

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

A line of showers and embedded thunderstorms made its way slowly southward ahead of a frontal boundary on the afternoon of the 16th. Although instability was not especially high, an area of shear and helicity ahead of the front supported a period of rotating thunderstorm cells. Three brief tornadoes were recorded in southwest Pennsylvania, although with a few other instances of wind damage. The tornadoes mainly produced tree damage, with some minor structural damage noted.

Direct damage primarily to trees was noted from the OH/PA state |line near Bell Street across the Shenango River into the towns of |Sharon and Farrell, PA.||A PennDOT trailer was tipped over early in the tornado's track |into Mercer County. Thereafter, damage was wholly to trees. Trees|were snapped, uprooted or topped along Stewart Avenue, Malleable|Street, and South Oakland Avenue near George and Morrison Streets.||A tree was blown down onto a house in this last area, where the|roof and brick chimney were damaged.||Wind damage in Mercer County was consistent with maximum wind|speed of 75-80 mph, which would categorize this segment of the|track as EF0. However, this tornado is a continuation of the EF1|tornado track from Trumbull County, and so its comprehensive rating will be EF1 based on the earlier damage in Ohio.

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.

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. The outlook in force was issued at 19:50 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.

Youngstown (YNG), 14 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Pittsburgh radar (KPBZ), 81 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:05 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

12 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.