Tornado confirmed in rural section of Butler County
No serious damage from Thursday storm
It was a weak tornado — as tornadoes go — with winds of up to just 80 mph.
But it cut a swath across Forward Township in Butler County 350 yards wide and a mile long after it touched down at 9:47 p.m. Thursday.
By the time the twister, ranked as an EF0 tornado on the Enhanced Fujita scale, had lifted back off the ground, it had uprooted one hardwood tree and sheared a pine tree three-quarters of the way up.
It also damaged roofs on outbuildings and knocked over more trees, pulling down power lines on Reibold Road.
But Steve Bicehouse, the Butler County director of emergency services and fire chief for that area, said there was no serious damage and no injuries.
“Because it was nighttime, you didn’t notice any damage. It’s mostly just cornfields and woods,” he said.
He noted there are few homes in the rural area, and the trees had been removed from the wires by midnight.
The National Weather Service had issued a tornado warning for Butler County at 9:43 p.m. as heavy storms passed through the Pittsburgh region; the warning, which means a tornado has been
sighted or indicated on weather radar, was canceled just after 10 p.m.
On Friday morning, the weather service sent a survey crew to the area to assess the damage, said Rihaan Gangat, an NWS meteorologist.
The conditions Thursday night, with severe storms, led to the twister.
“Basically, instability was in place and winds were favorable for spinoffs to occur,” Mr. Gangat said. “It wasn’t like something you’d see in the Central Plains.”
Weather over the weekend is expected to be hot, with temperatures in the upper 80s and the potential for thunderstorms on Sunday.
On Aug. 17, another EF0 tornado touched down in Washington County. That one, which moved along a mile-long path, knocked over trees and damaged buildings in Donora.
Thursday’s tornado in Butler County was the fifth in the weather service’s forecast region this severe weather season, which runs roughly from May through August, Mr. Gangat said. He noted that it was the 22nd tornado in Butler County since 1950, with the strongest ever coming out on the scale as an EF3 — with winds up to 165 mph. That occurred May 31, 1985.
The other three tornadoes this season — all EF0 on the scale — occurred June 16 in both Fayette County in Pennsylvania and Monongalia County in West Virginia, and on Aug. 14 in Belmont County, Ohio.
The Enhanced Fujita scale is used to rank tornadoes on their intensity, from EF0 to EF5, in which winds exceed 200 mph.