EF1 tornado, Rutledgedale, Pennsylvania, May 27, 2024

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

May 27, 2024

Touchdown

6:20 PM EDT (22:20 UTC)

Lifted

6:22 PM EDT (22:22 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.4 miles (0.6 km)

Path width

70 yards (64 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$20,000

County

Wayne County

Touchdown point

41.700, -75.175

Lift-off point

41.701, -75.167

Record number

2405271620-01

10 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BGM, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 90 mph.

• Half loss of metal roof and ripped off metal garage.
• Debris lofted into power line
• Large tree uprooted, snapped tree, and metal panelling from house across street on uprooted tree
• Speed limit sign bent in direction of storm and twisted

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

Multiple rounds of showers and thunderstorms moved through the area, where there was limited instability yet significant wind shear supportive of rotation in storm cells. A storm early in the evening did produce a brief tornado in West Damascus in Wayne County.

A brief tornado touched down near the intersection of Oregon Turnpike and Cochecton Turnpike in West Damascus in the early evening of May 27th. The tornado initially produced minor tree and crop damage and lifted some debris into powerlines. It then|continued eastward and crossed Cochecton Turnpike as well as Rutledgedale Road, uprooted a very large tree, and lofted additional debris into the tree. The tornado then crossed through a farm and caused significant roof and structural damage to a couple of barns. This is where the tornado was at its peak strength, with a metal roof partially lifted off a barn and a large wooden door ripped off another barn. Debris was also lofted down a hill roughly 100 feet away. Some minor tree and crop damage was observed down this hill, which was the last visible damage of the survey and the determined location where the tornado lifted.

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 severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 17:42 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:57 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), 87 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:21 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 2024 tornado in PennsylvaniaEvery tornado in Pennsylvania since 1950Warnings in force in Pennsylvania nowThe forecast where you are

6 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.