HARRISBURG (TNS) — After sending out investigators, the National Weather Service has confirmed that five tornadoes hit southwestern Pennsylvania within an hour last week.
An “intense squall line” moving east from Ohio spawned straight-line winds and four tornados on June 26, the NWS said in a Facebook post Saturday, and a separate storm produced a fifth. Damage from a possible sixth tornado is also being investigated.
Western Pennsylvania has seen multiple tornadoes in recent weeks spawned by severe storms coming from the west and southwest.
Shortly before 7:30 p.m. last Wednesday, the squall line “rapidly developed” on the border of Allegheny and Washington counties southeast of Pittsburgh International Airport.
Traveling at nearly 50 miles per hour, the squall line moved from near Oakdale, Allegheny County, over 60 miles to the Laurel Highlands.
The first tornado touched down at 7:38 p.m. in North Fayette Township near the airport. That was an EF-1 with winds reaching 90 mph and lasting about 7 miles, said the NWS. Damage was mainly limited to trees, the agency said.
A second EF-1 tornado with winds reaching 110 mph formed near Wilmerding, Allegheny County, at 7:57 p.m., the NWS reported. The tornado traveled 11 miles and had a 300-yard-wide path.
The tornado passed through hilly Westmoreland County terrain before crossing the Pennsylvania Turnpike and dying just past the Bushy Run Battlefield state park at 8:11 p.m. The NWS reported that there were “untold thousands” of trees damaged by the twister as well as utility poles, roofs and two school baseball field dugouts.
As that tornado was still active, a third one formed just north of it in Westmoreland County. This was the strongest of all the storms with an EF-2 rating and winds reaching 115 mph.
The NWS said the tornado traveled 11 miles and had a 200-yard-wide path and missed highly populated areas by just one mile. KDKA-TV reported that a family’s mini-horse was killed in this tornado after a tree fell on it.
Additionally, the tornado destroyed trees on a golf course and in forests before strengthening and causing roof damage to a machined parts plant and several homes. It lasted from 8:06 p.m. to 8:20 p.m.
The same squall line that generated the other three tornados created a fourth one in southern Indiana County at 8:30 p.m., reported the NWS. This tornado was an EF-0 with 75 mph winds lasting about a third of a mile.
It caused minor tree damage.
At 8:27 p.m., an EF-0 tornado with top winds of 80 mph touched down in Greene County from a separate storm. The NWS said this one lasted just two minutes and traveled a quarter of a mile, snapping some trees and causing “minor roof damage.”
The possible sixth tornado being investigated occurred in the Wilmerding area, the NWS said.
