EF1 tornado, Blooming Glen to Dublin, Pennsylvania, March 31, 2022

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

March 31, 2022

Touchdown

9:48 PM EDT (01:48 UTC)

Lifted

9:52 PM EDT (01:52 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

2.0 miles (3.2 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Bucks County

Touchdown point

40.379, -75.227

Lift-off point

40.399, -75.199

Record number

2203311948-01

A warm front moved through the mid-Atlantic on the morning hours of March 31. This was associated with a strong area of low pressure moving through the Great Lakes, which had brought widespread severe weather to the Southeast US in prior days. Behind the warm front, widespread cloud cover and scattered showers lingered for most of the day over the eastern mid-Atlantic. Despite temperatures that still warmed to above average values, this greatly limited instability. However, more sunshine and subsequent instability developed further west over central Pennsylvania and northern Maryland. As a cold front approached by late afternoon, forcing for ascent increased, and strong wind fields were in place across the region in the warm sector of the Great Lakes low. Widespread convection developed over the interior mid-Atlantic, some of which became strong to severe. Convection generally favored a linear evolution with some embedded supercell structures. Because of the orientation of mid and upper level winds and the decreasing instability to the east, thunderstorms were very slow to move east and gradually lost intensity with time. In the local area, reports of severe weather were mostly isolated and confined to eastern Pennsylvania. However, a short-lived EF1 tornado did touch down over Bucks County, producing a 2 mile path of tree, utility, and some structural damage. Shower and thunderstorm activity continued through much of the night, slowly making its way to the coast, but was well below severe limits over New Jersey and Delmarva in the later hours of the night.

A tornado began in Hilltown Township along Souderton Road about a |half mile west of Route 313/Dublin Pike. The tornado continued to |the northeast along Souderton Road where it uprooted and snapped |numerous trees and also caused primarily cosmetic damage to a few |homes. The CVS Pharmacy at the intersection of Souderton Road and |Route 313 also sustained minor cosmetic damage, including the front |door being blown out. Also near this intersection, a home sustained |minor cosmetic damage and a number of trees were uprooted and |snapped where the tornado crossed into Bedminster Township. The |tornado continued northeast along Bedminster Road weakening |somewhat, but still uprooting and snapping several trees and causing |cosmetic damage to some homes, especially near the intersection of |Bucks Road.||The tornado continued northeast toward Elephant Road while |continuing to cause mainly sporadic tree damage, including uprooting |several trees in front of a home. The tornado passed over the |Bedminster Municipal Authority complex, where it blew off roof |shingles from several well constructed buildings and uprooted a few |small trees nearby. The tornado crossed Elephant Road about 700 feet |south of Irish Meetinghouse Road where it caused some more |substantial tree damage. At least a dozen or more healthy trees were |uprooted or snapped along a driveway, one of which fell onto a |parked vehicle. The home on this property sustained minor cosmetic |damage and had some roof shingles blown off. The tornado then |continued into a wooded area with homes paralleling Irish |Meetinghouse Road where the tree damage became more sporadic once |again, and no additional structural damage was noted. The tornado |then crossed just north of Irish Meetinghouse Road where it uprooted |a few small trees in an open field then dissipated.||No known injuries or fatalities occurred from this tornado.

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 20:20 UTC and running to 03:20 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:40 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.

Perkasie (CKZ), 7 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Philadelphia radar (KDIX), 84 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:48 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 2022 tornado in PennsylvaniaEvery tornado in Pennsylvania since 1950Warnings in force in Pennsylvania nowThe forecast where you are

7 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.