EF1 tornado, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, September 1, 2026

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, as surveyed

EF1, preliminary

Date

September 1, 2026

Touchdown

7:44 PM EDT (23:44 UTC)

Lifted

7:48 PM EDT (23:48 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

1.1 miles (1.7 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Lancaster County

Touchdown point

40.034, -75.980

Lift-off point

40.019, -75.978

Highest wind the damage implies

90 mph

Surveyed by

NWS CTP

The office's name for it

Salisbury Township Tornado

Survey last edited

September 5, 2026

Record number

None yet. SPC numbers 2026 in the spring of 2027.

At 7:44 p.m. local time on September 1, 2026 an EF-1 tornado, with maximum wind speeds of 90 mph, touched down in Salisbury Township northwest of the Mount Vernon Road and Old Philadelphia Pike intersection with a width of 100 yards. It traveled south as it ripped off the roof of a barn and threw sections through the Old Road Mennonite Church graveyard before crossing Old Philadelphia Pike and paralleling Mount Vernon Road. It ripped a roof off another barn and snapped many larger limbs from a tree in the neighboring pasture. Continuing south it took some sections of roof and loose items from three farm outbuildings and ejected them throughout the fields. As it continued along Mount Vernon Road, a clump of trees was hit where many trees were uprooted and large branches snapped. Farther south, a barn sustained some minor roof damage before a one room school house was impacted with its whole roof torn off. At the intersection of Buena Vista Road and Mount Vernon Road, another tree was uprooted and a telephone pole was bent. It continued south to the east of Mount Vernon Road where it crossed Pequea Creek, snapping many large branches and uprooting a few more trees. Past the creek, another clump of trees saw large branches snapped before the tornado dissipated in a field.

We would like to thank Lancaster County Emergency Management and Salisbury Township officials for their assistance in this damage survey.

Written by NWS CTP in the NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit. A survey is revised as better evidence arrives.

9 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 90 mph.

• Multiple trees uprooted and large branches and sections of trees twisted and snapped.
• Large branches around top of tree torn and twisted off in multiple directions.
• Many large branches snapped off and a few smaller trees sitting along the creek bed uprooted.
• Multiple trees uprooted and large branches snapped.

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

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 20:32 UTC and running to 03:52 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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:00 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.

Coatesville (MQS), 11 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Philadelphia radar (KDIX), 134 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:44 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 2026 tornado in PennsylvaniaEvery tornado in Pennsylvania since 1950Warnings in force in Pennsylvania nowThe forecast where you are

2 more have been surveyed in the United States that day, so far.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. A survey can be revised, so the rating, the path and the casualties can all still change.

NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit, the record the survey teams file from the damage, and NOAA Storm Prediction Center storm reports. Neither is the official database for 2026, which SPC publishes in the spring of 2027.