While watching television the night of the storms, I remember seeing a national news report about the tornado outbreak. Hundreds were left homeless. Killer twisters also rampaged through northern Ohio, southwestern New York, and Ontario, in regions unaccustomed to encounters with the most ferocious storms on earth. Richard Thornburgh visited the Shenango Valley over the weekend and at his request, President Ronald Reagan issued a federal disaster declaration on Monday. This tornado is listed as only F3 in the official database. I went to the fire department and they told me that tornadoes had touched down near the communities of Tionesta, Marienville, and Tidioute and one had hit Kane directly. My primary job, besides helping with the placement and issuance of tornado and severe thunderstorm watches, was to manually log severe weather reports into the SELS database. At 850 mb (Figure 3), very warm/moist air was surging north into the Ohio Valley and a dryline was observed over the western Great Lakes and Midwest. This was my first severe weather shift as a lead forecaster. One side story, there was an unusual challenge for us on the Campus Weather Service team that night. [15][16] From 1950 to 1970, tornadoes were assessed retrospectively, primarily using information recorded in government databases, as well as newspaper photographs and eyewitness accounts. It's far from clear what I'd be doing right now had it not been for the 5/31/85 tornado outbreak (and also perhaps had we not learned about tornadoes in school just before the outbreak). The next day I was at work at WNEP-TV when a viewer called thinking a tornado had crossed his property. I forecast forradio stations all over the United States and Canada with a few in PA. (1986), an unseasonably strong low pressure center tracked across upper Michigan during the morning hours to just north of Sudbury by evening. Weather and Forecasting. The first hour or so of the shift was comparatively quiet; it took awhile before the first damage and injury/death reports made their way through the teletype circuits (the teletype or "Comms" room through which SELS received most damage reports at the time would close later the same year). NWS Pittsburgh. Temperatures were in the 80s (F) and dewpoint temperatures (a measure of moisture) were in the upper 60s and lower 70s (F). Dead bodies were carried .25mi (0.40km) away. This is not uncommon in very severe outbreaks as communications and widespread power outages disrupt the flow of information. I stayed two hours beyond my normal shift, through peak heating, andthen went home. It looked like it was bombed. While flying over the Wilderness Area, someone in the helicopter thought they had seen someone flash a signal or wave something. Greg Forbes recalled that an outbreak had been expected, but no one expected this. One of the strongest storms of the night moved across Clarion and Jefferson Counties. It didnt take long for good things to begin emerging from the horror. That summer experience exposed me to careers in scientific research; I realized for the first time that I could actually make a living studying tornadoes. I drove to Tionestaon Saturdaymorning to meet the helicopter. I'll never forget all the sirens going off as it was hitting. The tornado touched down in Portage County Ohio at 6:30 pm EDT and travelled 47 miles to lift in Mercer County Pennsylvania at 7:35 pm EDT. "If I'm going to die, I'm not going to die alone," I said to myself, and off I ran to my neighbor's home. Decades later, despite remarkable technological advances, they still guard their secrets. Rarely has such an outbreak of tornadoes been seen in this county and never before in this area. Wheatland was more industrial, residential and had experienced a F5 tornado. By early afternoon, thunderstorms developed in Ontario, Canada just ahead of the cold front. That said, a powerful tornado that packed winds up to 200 mph took away a house and killed three people in Limerick, Montgomery County, in July 1994, and a killer tornado struck the Philadelphia region, heavily damaging parts of Bucks and Montgomery Counties and leaving four people dead, on May 28, 1896. I was shaking so bad and didn't know where to go or what to do. Three rural schools houses were obliterated, at least one was "swept entirely away". Thirty-five years later, despite remarkable advances in radar and other technologies, tornadoes and their inner lives remain enigmas to atmospheric scientists. By the end of the evening, a total of forty-one tornadoes had occurred in the United States and Canada. The F5 rating was replaced by EF5 under the new Enhanced Fujita Scale. Weather Prediction Center An F3 tornado caused significant damage in northern Trumbull and southern Ashtabula Counties. Many of us have wondered if the Moshannon tornado reached F5 strength at some point, but it moved only through unpopulated areas (fortunately), so no evidence of F5 damage was found. He landed in a PSP helicopter and we talked about the relief efforts underway. I arrived at the office about 3:30 PM to a cloudless sky, but warm and humid conditions. As the tornado continued east along its forty-one mile path of destruction, it crossed the state line and slammed into the community of Wheatland located in Mercer County, Pennsylvania. In Figure 2, we can see a warm front advecting northward across Ontario and a cold front moving eastward (entering Michigan). It also blasted the area and survivors with grit and stones picked up from a sand-and-gravel company on the edge of town.ANNE REDFIELD | Herald file. The storm paralleled I-80, so a track a bit further south would have been a disaster. One book led to another and another and another, and the rest is history. This tornado stayed on the ground for 45 miles but fortunately killed no people. Just after 4 p.m., the Cleveland weather service office posted a thunderstorm warning, and it quickly became clear that a tornado outbreak of an unprecedented magnitude was taking place.. May 31, 1985 changed my life forever. This depicts 2800 J/kg of CAPE in the vicinity, therefore indicating a moderate to high value of instability in the atmosphere for severe thunderstorms. France and Canada also adopted the EF-Scale in subsequent years. I had been home long enough to change into work clothes and mow between a few rows of Christmas trees before Isaw my wife at the time waving to me from the top of the hill. Apparently too many came into the small Penn State radar room to witness weather history because the room got so hot that radar overheated and shut down about the time the Moshannon tornado was ending. Six hundred buildings were destroyed, and some areas were swept clean of all debris. Injuries were in the hundreds. That all changed during the afternoon and evening hours of May 31st. In the weeks and months that followed, my legislative offices assisted people and communities obtain any state aid that was available. rain, hail and sometimes debris caused by the tornado, spiraling inward around the tornado circulation. You have permission to edit this article. What trees had limbs were covered with debris. One notable survivor: 1 year old Elvis Presley", 10.1175/1520-0493(1939)67<176:tcmt>2.0.co;2, "Top Ten Deadliest Oklahoma Tornadoes (1882-Present)", F5 Tornadoes in the U.S. since 1950 (SPC/NOAA), Climatological Risk of Strong and Violent Tornadoes in the United States (Paper 9.4, Second Conference on Environmental Applications), Severe Thunderstorm and Tornado Climatology (NSSL), List of strong tornadoes from 1879 to 2000, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_F5_and_EF5_tornadoes&oldid=1149715856. I remember about 4:00-4:30 in the afternoon a few coming into the Penn State weather station to check on whether the anticipated severe weather outbreak had gotten going. Tragically, these tornadoes killed 66 people in Ohio and Pennsylvania. In the years that followed, I got to spend some time with Greg at various American Meteorological Society conferences, and we often talked about the wild night of May 31st in 1985. The strength of the front and the degree of instability lead to the erosion or breaking of the cap and thunderstorms exploded with violent results. At first all the action was inOntario. CLE Office This tornado reportedly left more intense damage than the previous event did in Woodward. The physical scars are mostly gone or healed. Trees will be compeltely debarked and . I can vaguely remember the unusual heat and humidity that was around for that time of the year. This page will focus on the tornadoes that impacted northeastern Ohio, far southwestern New York, and Pennsylvania. Tornado, in one of historys greatest detective feats, measured the immeasurable, Storms disrupt SEPTA rail service; EF-2 tornado damages dozens of homes in Delco, California residents do not sell my data request. My father always listened to the scanner at night and his room was across from mine. A few days after the tornado outbreak a group of us toured a part of the path of the Moshannon tornado and the damage in Kane. Then-Gov. The following sounding is from Dayton, Ohio (DAY) the morning of the 31st. May 31st, 1985 Tornado Outbreak The 30th Anniversary, Supplemental Presentation by Nick Sleptzoff, former Erie County EMA director: When I got home, I sat down for some dinner and to watch a video I had rented for a Friday night movie. I can still remember the feelings that I had upon seeing the damage and total destruction that occurred with that event. Many large stone buildings were flattened. The true enormity of the31 Mayevent would not, however, become apparent to me until the following day when I awoke to radio news accounts from the devastated region. Multiple and on the ground for miles. This is the story behind the F5 tornado. An embedded "ball image indicated that it had ingested massive quantities of debris, recalled Greg Forbes, at the time a Penn State professor who later would become one of the countrys most visible severe-storm specialists. . Hearing a deafening sound like a train. The three ingredients needed for thunderstorms are lift, moisture and instability. We are founded on the premise that all people have the right to feel secure when bad weather strikes. After 8 PM, the outflow from the Big Beaver storm initiated a new storm that produced an F1 short track tornado in East Sparta, OH just west of the Pittsburgh WSR-57 radar. The Black Friday Tornado Outbreak in Ontario [PDF file]. Sorry, the location you searched for was not found. The fact that significant weather occurred did not take anybody by surprise, but the magnitude of what happened was unprecedented. Tornado track of tornado outbreak on May 31, 1985 (NWS, 2019). The cell speed of the storms was from the west at about 50 knots. It took until 5 through Friday afternoon rush hour traffic to get back to the our office. A warm front lifted north across the region during the predawn hours of the 31st. pic.twitter.com/61pK1ZSbT6. Half of the 20 tornadoes that hit Pennsylvania that day would have qualified, and one of those was an EF5. On storm surveys the next day, Forbes saw stacks of ripped-down trees piled 10 feet high. That was my cue to call the hospital. Arriving for shift around3:45Central Time, departing lead forecaster Steve Weiss (now Chief of the Science Support Branch at the SPC) briefed us that a tornado watch recently had been issued for parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. Wikimedia Commons. The funnel clouds ripped homes from their foundations; tossed cars and trucks like twigs; toppled power poles; and twisted the tops off trees. For a horrifying day, a tornado alley cut through Pennsylvania.