EF1 tornado, Pleasant Grove to Van Buren, 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

8:08 PM EDT (00:08 UTC)

Lifted

8:23 PM EDT (00:23 UTC)

On the ground

15 minutes

Path length

4.5 miles (7.2 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$350,000

Crop damage

$10,000

County

Washington County

Touchdown point

40.100, -80.370

Lift-off point

40.080, -80.290

Record number

2308121808-01

6 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS PBZ, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 104 mph.

• Numerous pine trees (>30) snapped in a cluster along PA 121 south of cracraft rd
• Exterior patio wood roof lifted and destroyed. ATV overturned. No other damage to SFH.

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

A mid-level shortwave trough moved across the northern Great Lakes with a belt of stronger flow moving through the southern Great Lakes. Scattered thunderstorms|developed through midday into the afternoon. Forecast soundings showed some low-level hodograph curvature. Supercells evolved ahead of the cold front and create a large hail and tornado threat.

The National Weather Service in Pittsburgh conducted a storm|survey and concluded the damage was consistent with an EF-1 tornado. |Tornado damage began along Valley View Road in East Finley township. |An intermittent, and extremely narrow damage path continued along |Cracraft Road where an attached patio roof was taken off along with |part of the roof to the main residence. Additional snapped |or uprooted trees were observed further east along the |street at a neighboring residense. The most significant damage |occurred just past the midpoint of the tornado track, along the west |side of PA Route 221 where a cluster of approximately 30 pine trees |were all snapped near the base up to approximately 1/3rd of the way |up the trees, consistent with a high end EF1 rating. Additional |damage was noted along PA 18 to a township shed and outbuilding. |This was the end of the observed damage track, with beginning and |end concident with a well-defined gate-to-gate velocity couplet and |hook echo present from the Pittsburgh Doppler Radar. Length and |times of this tornado have been updated based on the additional |damage obtained since yesterday's initial survey. The very narrow |width to this tornado is further supported by video of the event |provided to the National Weather Service via social media.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

5 minutes of warning. NWS PBZ issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:03 UTC, 5 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:30 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 00:06 UTC and running to 01:38 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 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.

Washington County (AFJ), 6 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Pittsburgh radar (KPBZ), 50 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:06 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.