EF1 tornado, Rathbun, Pennsylvania, March 16, 2025

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 16, 2025

Touchdown

2:22 PM EDT (18:22 UTC)

Lifted

2:23 PM EDT (18:23 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.5 miles (0.8 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$350,000

County

Elk County

Touchdown point

41.493, -78.475

Lift-off point

41.501, -78.474

Record number

2503161222-01

2 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS CTP, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 100 mph.

• Hundreds of trees uprooted with several trees also snapped. Tree types include hemlock, spruce, and pine.
• Hundreds of trees downed an uprooted. Window blown in on house. Roof partially lifted from barn.

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

A cold front west of central Pennsylvania slowly began to drift eastward during the morning hours and throughout the day on March 16, 2025 allowing ample lift in an environment with sufficient shear and instability to form a quasi-linear convective system across western Pennsylvania. This QLCS continued moving into a more favorable environment across central Pennsylvania, with increased instability from a dry slot coupled with a favorable entrance region of an upper-level jet maximum to produce enhanced shear. This allowed for the QLCS to strengthen across central Pennsylvania and caused extensive damage across west-central Pennsylvania with ample low-level shear spawning two tornadoes in Clinton and Elk counties. Farther east, a less favorable environment was in place with more stable air and lower shear; however, the forward momentum of the QLCS allowed for further damage across northeastern Pennsylvania. Later in the evening, thunderstorms began to form south of central Pennsylvania and gradually drifted northeastward with upper-level support. Strong-to-severe thunderstorms were present along the Mason-Dixon line with a severe thunderstorm producing quarter and ping pong-sized hail in York County.

An EF1 tornado occurred along North Fork Road in Elk County during the afternoon hours of March 16, 2025 with maximum estimated winds at 100 mph. The tornado was on the ground for less than one minute, but downed, snapped, and uprooted hundreds of trees and power lines. A local resident indicated that a window was blown in at their residence along with a barn roof being partially lifted due to the tornado. The damage was concentrated within a swath about 200 yards wide.

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

22 minutes of warning. NWS CTP issued a tornado warning for this county at 18:00 UTC, 22 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 18:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 16:50 UTC and running to 18:52 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 16:28 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 State College radar (KCCX), 75 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:22 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 2025 tornado in PennsylvaniaEvery tornado in Pennsylvania since 1950Warnings in force in Pennsylvania nowThe forecast where you are

14 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.