EF1 tornado, Tank to Briggsville, Pennsylvania, August 12, 2023

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

August 12, 2023

Touchdown

4:32 PM EDT (20:32 UTC)

Lifted

4:37 PM EDT (20:37 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

3.3 miles (5.2 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Luzerne County

Touchdown point

41.020, -76.180

Lift-off point

41.046, -76.128

Record number

2308121432-01

A frontal boundary moved through Northeastern Pennsylvania, supporting multiple thunderstorms. High instability and shear supported isolated severe thunderstorms containing damaging wind gusts, small hail, and a tornado. NWS surveys confirmed a tornado in Luzerne County and a microburst in Bradford County. While most of the damage was downed trees from these events, there was some property damage as well.

A tornado touched down just north of Interstate 80 along Nescopeck|Creek. A narrow alley of numerous downed or snapped trees occurred,|roughly following Overlook Road and then West Hollow Road, where|a convergent and at times oppositional tree pattern was observed. |The tornado departed West Hollow Road only to reemerge crossing |Route 93, where a few hundred small apple trees were pushed over in|an orchard, and a front porch roof was lifted up and over a house, |while peeling back a portion of the primary roof of the residence. |A large tree top was also lofted, and thrown to Zenith Road, to the |left of the tornado path. The tornado intensified while moving along |Hobbie Road, with numerous large trunk snaps, including several trees |damaging a residence with a destroyed shed. The yard had several |missiles in the form of small branches impaling into the ground. |The tornado finally lifted shortly after, before reaching the |intersection of Hobbie Road and Wapwallopen Road.

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 16:54 UTC and running to 01:00 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 19:59 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 Binghamton radar (KBGM), 130 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:29 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 2023 tornado in PennsylvaniaEvery tornado in Pennsylvania since 1950Warnings in force in Pennsylvania nowThe forecast where you are

15 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.