Tornado causes minimal damage
Trees are broken and blown over from an EF1 tornado along a communications tower road in the Lake Harmony area of Carbon County. COURTESY NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE
Tornado damage is show near Big Boulder Ski Area. The tornado’s path was 40 yards wide by 0.9 miles long.
An EF1 tornado that touched down in Carbon County Tuesday evening caused minimal damage, officials said.
On Thursday, Carbon County Commissioner Thomas J. Gerhard spoke about the recent weather event that occurred near Big Boulder Ski Area in Lake Harmony.
At 6:37 p.m. Tuesday, the twister touched down along a communications tower access road near Big Boulder Lake.
It traveled just under 1 mile, downing a number of trees along the access road.
Gerhard said that on Wednesday, a number of county officials, state and federal officials went to the site to investigate the scene.
He said that the generator for the tower was running and the Pennsylvania Turnpike was called in to remove the trees from the roadway so PPL could replace one of its poles, but there was no damage to the communications tower.
The National Weather Service was also out at the site Wednesday and confirmed an EF1 tornado touched down. An EF1 rating means that the tornado had wind speeds of 86 to 110 mph.
In the Carbon County case, the National Weather Service determined the tornado had 100 to 110 mph winds.
An aerial survey of the location will also be conducted by the Civil Air Patrol, Sarah Johnson of the National Weather Service said Thursday.
It was initially scheduled for Thursday, but due to low clouds in the morning, it was delayed and will occur either today or Saturday, Johnson said.
The tornado that touched down in Carbon County was one of 13 tornadoes that formed during a line of strong thunderstorms that moved through the state Tuesday evening.
“This is especially significant because prior to this year, there had only been 13 October tornadoes on record,” Johnson said, noting that tornado records go back to 1950. “So in one day, the number of October tornadoes doubled for the state.”
Another local EF1 tornado touched down in Jackson Township, Monroe County, and traveled 1.3 miles along Sportsmans and Skyhawk trails and through a cornfield near Mountain and Jackson roads.
Johnson said that in addition to the tornadoes in Carbon and Monroe counties, there were three tornadoes confirmed in Westmoreland County, two in Crawford County, two in Jefferson County, two in Lackawanna County, one in Greene County and one in Lycoming County.
