EF0 tornado, Hosensack to Dillingersville, Pennsylvania, May 29, 2019

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 29, 2019

Touchdown

3:14 PM EDT (19:14 UTC)

Lifted

3:21 PM EDT (19:21 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

2.3 miles (3.7 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Lehigh County

Touchdown point

40.447, -75.488

Lift-off point

40.442, -75.446

Record number

1905291314-01

14 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS PHI, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 100 mph.

• absolutely leveled. trees all down in one direction. damage much worse than other two locations
• has to be a 1000 trees down
• they are laying the same way, but this bunch of trees are laying about 90 degrees to the right of other trees down

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

The second day of a three day outbreak of severe weather, numerous severe thunderstorms developed over the mid-Atlantic as a wave of low pressure tracked along a stalled frontal boundary. Widespread wind damage occurred along with areas of severe hail and a weak tornado in Lehigh County, PA.

A weak EF-0 tornado descended to the ground near the intersection of |Kings Highway and East Mill Hill Road in the far southern portions of|Lower Milford Township in Lehigh County around 3:14 PM on Wednesday,|May 29th. The tornado then lifted and descended several times as it |traveled in an east to southeast direction, crossing over the Bucks |County line into northern portions of Milford Township before lifting|the final time northwest of Spinnerstown. The primary damage from |this tornado was fallen and snapped trees along the 2.3 mile path,|with at least one home sustaining roof damage from a fallen tree.

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 tornado watch, issued at 17:10 UTC and running to 22:18 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:35 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), 105 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:14 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

40 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.