F3 Tornado — Pike, Pennsylvania

1998-05-31 · near Pecks Pond, Pike, Pennsylvania

Event narrative

The cell that produced tornadic damage earlier both in southern Wayne county and just upstream in Promised Land State Park dropped a tornado once again across the southern and southeastern portions of Pike county. A nearly continuous 20 mile path was uncovered via aerial storm surveys from Pecks Pond east-southeastward to near route 739 in Delaware township. The average width of the damage path was about 200 yards. The twister descended once again in the Pecks Pond area around 8:20 pm EDT. At that point, the intensity was rated as F2 as the tornado cut down nearly every tree in its path on its way towards Blue Heron Lake. At approximately 8:30 pm, the tornado struck the small vacation community surrounding Blue Heron Lake. A summer home was leveled by the force of the twister. The only things left standing were an interior wall and a few sturdy metal cabinets on the floor in the kitchen. An adjacent mobile home was severely damaged as well. Two campers near this area had minor injuries from falling tree limbs. Otherwise, though, injuries were kept to a minimum as homes were mostly vacant. In addition, an estimated thousands of trees were sheared off or toppled bordering Blue Heron Lake both to the west and east. The twister's intensity increased at this point to F3. Further downstream, the tornado continued to cut a consistent path of twisted off and/or uprooted trees across the Little Mud Pond, Silver Lake, and Deer Leap Factory areas. The tornado appeared to skip across hilltop sections along this route with its intensity mainly in the F1 range. Finally, just before 8:45 pm EDT, the tornado ascended once again in Delaware township as little in the way of damage was evident between route 739 and the Delaware River. In all, emergency management and federal officials estimated that in excess of 1 million dollars damage was incurred along this approximately 20 mile path. Many roads were closed as they became impassable due to fallen trees and wires. Portions of routes 402 and 390 were closed for several days. In addition, sections of Promised Land State Park were closed off to the public for about two weeks until all debris was cleared away and power was restored.

Wider weather episode

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.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (41.3000, -75.1000)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 5649557. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.