EF0 tornado, Mohrsville to Shoemakersville, Pennsylvania, May 4, 2025

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mph

   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

EF0

Date

May 4, 2025

Touchdown

5:57 PM EDT (21:57 UTC)

Lifted

5:59 PM EDT (21:59 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.7 miles (2.7 km)

Path width

35 yards (32 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Berks County

Touchdown point

40.481, -75.989

Lift-off point

40.492, -75.962

Record number

2505041557-01

6 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS PHI, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EFU. The highest wind the damage implies is 63 mph.

• Social media photo shows a tornadic circulation crossing Route 61 just south of the railroad crossing.
• Storm survey confirms minor tree damage along Shoemakersville Road.
• Video via social media confirms a brief landspout and/or waterspout occurred over or near the northern portion of Blue March Lake near the community of Mount Pleasant. An initial storm survey did not find an evidence of damage in this area.
• Line of swirl marks in an open field where the tornadic circulation crossed.

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

Two separate showers very close to a stationary front each produced a landspout tornado on the afternoon of May 4.

Multiple pictures and videos showed a tornado in a rural area between Mohrsville and Shoemakersville. The storm survey concluded that the tornadic circulation began in an open field near Main Street and Shoey Road, where a line of swirl marks from ground scouring was noted for about a half mile. The circulation weakened some and became discontinuous as it progressed east toward Pottsville Pike (Route 61), crossing the Schuylkill River. A photo from social media showed the tornadic circulation crossing the highway near a railroad crossing south of Shoemakersville Road, where some minor tree damage occurred. The circulation then continued northeast, crossing Shoemakersville Road causing minor tree damage where it ended.

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.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:56 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.

Reading/Spaatz Field (RDG), 12 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Philadelphia radar (KDIX), 146 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:56 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

3 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.