Tornadoes · United States · Pennsylvania · 2025
EF0 tornado, Reinholds, Pennsylvania, May 4, 2025
This EF0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Lancaster County on May 4, 2025, touching down at 1:33 PM EDT and reaching 10 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $30,000 of property damage.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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.
The record
- Rating
- EF0
- Date
- May 4, 2025
- Touchdown
- 1:33 PM EDT (17:33 UTC)
- Lifted
- 1:34 PM EDT (17:34 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.1 miles (0.2 km)
- Path width
- 10 yards (9 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $30,000
- County
- Lancaster County
- Touchdown point
- 40.250, -76.115
- Lift-off point
- 40.252, -76.115
- Record number
- 2505041133-01
The damage survey
4 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS CTP and NWS PHI, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EFU. The highest wind the damage implies is 83 mph.
- 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.
Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.
What the Weather Service recorded
A stationary front located across southeastern Pennsylvania allowed for thunderstorms to begin forming during the afternoon hours of May 4, 2025. Ample moisture, with low LCL's and marginally sufficient 0-1 km shear values allowed for a brief tornado to form in East Cocalico Township, with peak winds estimated at 80 to 85 mph. The tornado destroyed three sheds and damaged the siding of two houses between Martzall Road and White Oak Road.
A National Weather Service damage survey confirmed an EF0 tornado in East Cocalico Township on the afternoon of May 4, 2025, with peak winds estimated at 80 to 85 mph. The tornado destroyed three sheds and damaged the siding of two houses between Martzall Road and White Oak Road.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
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 forecast that day
The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 16:25 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 air that afternoon
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/Dulle, VA (KIAD), 12:00Z
5.6 hours before the tornado, 182 km from the path. May 4, 2025.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 36 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -21 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 85 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 556 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 38 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 21 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 78 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 87 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.7 K/km
Washington/Dulle, VA (KIAD), 00:00Z
6.4 hours after it, 182 km from the path. May 5, 2025.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 836 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -1 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 1300 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 832 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 27 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 14 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 37 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 39 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.1
- Supercell composite
- 0.6
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.8 K/km
The radar
The Philadelphia radar (KDIX), 149 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:34 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.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17:33 UTC | TORNADO | 2 Ne Denver | Lancaster, PA | A brief tornado occurred between Martzall Road and White Oak Road in East Cocalico Township just northeast of Denver. Damage along the approximately 500 foot path length consisted of three sheds being destroyed and the s |
| 18:11 UTC | LANDSPOUT | 3 E North Heidelberg Tw | Berks, PA | Video via social media confirms a brief landspout and/or waterspout occurred near the northern end of Blue Marsh Lake in the Blue Marsh National Recreation area near the community of Mount Pleasant. An initial storm surv |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2025 tornado in PennsylvaniaEvery tornado in Pennsylvania since 1950Warnings in force in Pennsylvania nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of May 4, 2025
3 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
What this means
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.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.