F2 tornado in Pike County, Pennsylvania

The tornadic supercell that affected southern Wayne county a bit earlier in the evening continued eastward into Pike county. A tornado touched down briefly in Promised Land and then plowed through portions of Promised Land State Park before temporarily lifting into the cloud base. The twister cut approximately a 2 mile by 500 yard path through heavily forested areas of the park. Camp sites were littered with trees as the tornado cut down hundreds of them. Some of the trees were very sizeable and they were still chopped down or twisted off quite easily as evidenced by ground and aerial post storm surveys. A few homes near the path of the twister sustained minor to moderate damage from falling trees. Fortunately, camp grounds and vacation homes were largely unoccupied when the tornado struck. The tornado appeared to be near ground level for only a few minutes as the damage path became discontinuous again just east of the park.

An intensifying storm system moved across upstate New York and into southern Quebec early in the morning on the 31st. This system dragged a warm front across northeastern Pennsylvania. Behind this front, a southerly flow of warm, moist, and unstable air quickly developed. This set the stage for the development of severe weather later that afternoon as a cold front and strong upper air disturbance approached. From late in the afternoon until late that evening, northeastern Pennsylvania was under siege from severe thunderstorms, including several tornadic supercells. In all, nine separate tornadoes touched down on this day. Overall damage estimates run into the millions with many homes and structures heavily damaged or destroyed. The most devastating storms occurred in Pike county. Within about a 3 hour stretch from 7 to 10 pm EDT, four different twisters affected the county. One tornadic cell was responsible for knocking down thousands of healthy large trees in and around Promised Land State Park with several vacation homes damaged or leveled. Fortunately, injuries were kept at a minimum. Widespread straight line wind damage also occurred with hailstones the size of ping pong balls falling in some places. The north side of Scranton had extensive wind damage as a storm passed through shortly before 10 pm EDT and sections of Wayne and Luzerne counties had roads closed and/or blocked from falling trees for more than 2 days after the storm. Pennsylvania Power and Light Company estimated that hundreds of thousands of customers were without power at the height of the storms on the evening of the 31st. Some of the more remote locations did not have power restored for the better part of a week.