Tornadoes · United States · Pennsylvania · 2019
EF0 tornado, Dushore, Pennsylvania, May 29, 2019
This EF0 tornado ran 0.4 miles across Sullivan County on May 29, 2019, touching down at 3:20 PM EDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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.
The record
- Rating
- EF0
- Date
- May 29, 2019
- Touchdown
- 3:20 PM EDT (19:20 UTC)
- Lifted
- 3:22 PM EDT (19:22 UTC)
- On the ground
- 2 minutes
- Path length
- 0.4 miles (0.7 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Sullivan County
- Touchdown point
- 41.535, -76.370
- Lift-off point
- 41.537, -76.362
- Record number
- 1905291320-01
What the Weather Service recorded
An EF0 tornado touched down near Dushore in Sullivan County on the afternoon of May 29, 2019. The tornado produced maximum winds estimated near 75 mph along a path that was just under 1/2 of a mile long, and a maximum path width of approximately 50 yards.
A National Weather Service storm survey confirmed an EF0 tornado near Dushore in Sullivan County Pennsylvania on May 29, 2019.||Significant tree damage was observed south of Route 87 and Dutch Mountain Road and north of the Little Loyalsock Creek.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
1 minute of warning. NWS CTP issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:19 UTC, 1 minute before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:45 UTC.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:18 UTC and running to 20:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17:18 UTC | 20:00 UTC | Tornado Watch | CTP |
| 19:16 UTC | 20:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | CTP |
| 19:19 UTC | 19:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | CTP |
| 19:40 UTC | 20:04 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | CTP |
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 forecast that day
The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk. 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 air that afternoon
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.
Albany, NY (KALY), 12:00Z
7.3 hours before the tornado, 245 km from the path. May 29, 2019.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -89821 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 2 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 613 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 58 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 18 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -41 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 13 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 1.9 K/km
Albany, NY (KALY), 00:00Z
4.7 hours after it, 245 km from the path. May 30, 2019.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -80079 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 881 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 58 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 13 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 136 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 181 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.7 K/km
The radar
The Binghamton radar (KBGM), 80 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:17 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.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18:30 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | Shickshinny | Luzerne, PA | REPORT OF A FUNNEL CLOUD IN SHICKSHINNY AREA |
| 18:30 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Exeter | Luzerne, PA | LARGE TREE DOWN ON VEHICLE. |
| 18:42 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Slocum | Luzerne, PA | TREES AND WIRES DOWN NEAR MUD POND |
| 18:44 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Nanticoke | Luzerne, PA | WIRES DOWN IN ROADWAY WITH POLE SNAPPED. |
| 18:54 UTC | HAIL 0.75 | Moosic | Lackawanna, PA | |
| 19:15 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 E Feys Grove | Luzerne, PA | TREES AND WIRES DOWN NEAR 326 BLUE RIDGE TRAIL |
| 19:20 UTC | TORNADO | 2 E Dushore | Sullivan, PA | EF-0 WITH MAX WINDS OF 75 MPH. PATH LENGTH OF 0.2 MILES AND PATH WIDTH OF 50 YARDS. |
| 19:23 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Bloomsburg | Columbia, PA | TREES AND WIRES DOWN ON W 1ST ST. |
| 19:35 UTC | DOWNBURST 70 | 1 Sse Forkston | Wyoming, PA | SEVERAL UPROOTED AND SNAPPED TREES ON WINDY VALLEY RD. DOWNED TREES DAMAGED FENCE AND BLEACHERS AT CREEK JUNCTION PARK. |
| 19:35 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 3 Sw Barbours | Lycoming, PA | SEVERAL TREES DOWNED OR SNAPPED. |
| 19:43 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 2 Se Muncy | Lycoming, PA | MULTIPLE TREES DOWN IN MUNCY CREEK TWP. TIME ESTIMATED FROM RADAR. |
| 19:45 UTC | HEAVY RAIN 1.61 | Dushore | Sullivan, PA | 1.61 INCH OF RAIN IN 20 MINUTES. |
| 20:42 UTC | FLOOD | Taylor | Lackawanna, PA | MULTIPLE REPORTS OF FLOODED BASEMENTS |
| 21:15 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | Wilkes-Barre | Luzerne, PA | TRAFFIC DIVERTED DUE TO WATER OVER ROADWAY ON MAIN STREET. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2019 tornado in PennsylvaniaEvery tornado in Pennsylvania since 1950Warnings in force in Pennsylvania nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of May 29, 2019
40 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 29 | 8:44 AM CDT | EF1 | Scott, MO | 1.0 | 75 | $50,000 | ||
| May 29 | 2:07 PM EDT | EF0 | Tioga, PA | 1.1 | 50 | $25,000 | ||
| May 29 | 1:19 PM CDT | EF0 | Tarrant, TX | 3.9 | 200 | $5,000 | ||
| May 29 | 1:22 PM CDT | EF0 | Denton, TX | 3.7 | 250 | $1,000 | ||
| May 29 | 1:31 PM CDT | EF1 | Tarrant, TX | 0.5 | 300 | $100,000 | ||
| May 29 | 3:14 PM EDT | EF0 | Lehigh, PA | 2.3 | 50 | |||
| May 29 | 2:58 PM CDT | EF0 | Rockwall, TX | 3.1 | 25 | $1,000 | ||
| May 29 | 3:07 PM CDT | EF0 | Van Zandt, TX | 3.0 | 100 | $5,000 | ||
| May 29 | 4:14 PM EDT | EF1 | Perry, PA | 4.9 | 300 | $40,000 | ||
| May 29 | 3:17 PM CDT | Unrated | Van Zandt, TX | 0.2 | 50 | |||
| May 29 | 4:24 PM EDT | EF1 | Dauphin, PA | 2.5 | 350 | $20,000 | ||
| May 29 | 4:24 PM EDT | EF1 | Fulton, PA | 0.7 | 50 | $35,000 | ||
| May 29 | 3:36 PM CDT | EF0 | Wood, TX | 3.4 | 100 | $1,000 | ||
| May 29 | 4:00 PM CDT | Unrated | Sac, IA | 1.2 | 30 | |||
| May 29 | 4:11 PM CDT | Unrated | Sac, IA | 0.7 | 20 | |||
| May 29 | 4:21 PM CDT | EF0 | McCurtain, OK | 1.1 | 75 | |||
| May 29 | 4:24 PM CDT | EF2 | Kaufman, TX | 4.0 | 215 | 1 | $1.0 million | |
| May 29 | 4:28 PM CDT | EF0 | Christian, IL | 0.2 | 20 | |||
| May 29 | 4:30 PM CDT | EF0 | Christian, IL | 0.2 | 20 | |||
| May 29 | 4:35 PM CDT | EF0 | Christian, IL | 0.3 | 20 | |||
| May 29 | 4:49 PM CDT | Unrated | Pocahontas, IA | 0.2 | 40 | |||
| May 29 | 4:50 PM CDT | EF0 | Macon, IL | 0.5 | 20 | |||
| May 29 | 4:50 PM CDT | EF2 | Wood, TX | 9.1 | 850 | $300,000 | ||
| May 29 | 4:51 PM CDT | EF2 | Van Zandt, TX | 7.2 | 700 | $500,000 | ||
| May 29 | 5:08 PM CDT | EF1 | Van Zandt, TX | 2.3 | 140 | $250,000 | ||
| May 29 | 5:16 PM CDT | EF0 | Randolph, AR | 0.6 | 75 | $40,000 | ||
| May 29 | 5:18 PM CDT | EF1 | Van Zandt, TX | 3.8 | 250 | $1,000 | ||
| May 29 | 5:31 PM CDT | EF0 | Fannin, TX | 10.8 | 300 | $25,000 | ||
| May 29 | 6:21 PM CDT | Unrated | Humboldt, IA | 0.5 | 30 | |||
| May 29 | 6:23 PM CDT | EF0 | Iowa, IA | 0.1 | 20 | |||
| May 29 | 7:01 PM CDT | EF1 | Poweshiek, IA | 3.5 | 50 | 1 | $10,000 | |
| May 29 | 7:28 PM CDT | Unrated | Poweshiek, IA | 0.9 | 30 | |||
| May 29 | 7:37 PM CDT | EF0 | Hardin, IA | 1.1 | 30 | |||
| May 29 | 7:39 PM CDT | Unrated | Poweshiek, IA | 0.9 | 30 | |||
| May 29 | 7:46 PM CDT | EF0 | Iowa, IA | 3.3 | 20 | |||
| May 29 | 8:13 PM CDT | EF0 | Johnson, IA | 0.3 | 20 | |||
| May 29 | 8:15 PM CDT | EF0 | Hardin, IA | 1.2 | 30 | |||
| May 29 | 8:29 PM CDT | EF0 | Hardin, IA | 0.6 | 40 | $30,000 | ||
| May 29 | 8:31 PM CDT | EF0 | Hardin, IA | 1.3 | 50 | $10,000 | ||
| May 29 | 8:54 PM CDT | Unrated | Hardin, IA | 0.7 | 20 |
What this means
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.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.