F1 Tornado — Chester, Pennsylvania

1999-11-26 · near Honey Brook, Chester, Pennsylvania

Event narrative

An unseasonably warm and humid air mass and an approaching cold front combined to produce a tornado (F1 on the Fujita Scale) in Honey Brook near 6 p.m. EST. About a dozen people were injured. Two barns and four houses were destroyed, twenty-five other homes were damaged. A warehouse was also badly damaged. About 35 families were evacuated. Damage was estimated at 3 million dollars. Based on the storm survey, winds were near the high range of the F1 tornado scale and were estimated to be around 100 mph.The tornado touched down near Diane Drive then moved on a north path paralleling Pennsylvania State Route 10 and crossed U.S. Route 322 near the Zook's Molasses Warehouse. The tornado made a slight turn to the east after crossing Rodd Road and lifted near a quarry near Welsh Road. The tornado was on the ground for about 1.8 miles. Its path width was estimated at 100 yards.A house on Diane Drive had the appearance of an implosion. On Walnut Drive was destroyed, two others were badly damaged. One house on Meadow Drive was missing a wall and a large portion of its roof. On Route 10, the tornado ripped the roof and the third floor off the barn. A father and his three sons that were milking the cows when the tornado passed were injured, two seriously. The tornado proceeded to destroy the two silos on the farm. Across the street, the tornado ripped the roof from the three story Zook Molasses Company Warehouse. A gas leak at the site forced the evacuations of 30 families. Twisted and mangled pieces of sheet metal dotted the landscape. Furniture and insulation was lodeged in tree tops. Roofs, walls and even bathtubs were found in fields.Daily high temperature records were tied at both the Philadelphia (70 degrees) and the Lehigh Valley (67 degrees) International Airports on the 26th.

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Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 5721762. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.