F2 tornado in Pike County, Pennsylvania

A severe thunderstorm became tornadic just south of Interstate 84 and east of Tarey Hill in Blooming Grove township around 8:20 pm EDT. The tornado cut approximately a 3 mile by 200 yard path paralleling Interstate 84. The twister moved through heavily forested areas and mowed down hundreds of trees in its path. Again, many of the trees were quite sizeable and appeared to be toppled easily. The damage pattern was circular in spots as viewed by aerial surveys. Fortunately, little in the way of houses or populated regions were in the path of this particular tornado. The tornado's intensity seemed to fluctuate between F1 and F2. The tornado lifted back up just east of route 739 near Cranberry Ridge as little in the way of damage was seen downstream of this point. Several local roads were closed for up to 24 hours from fallen trees.

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.