Tornado confirmed in Beaver County
The National Weather Service in Pittsburgh said it has confirmed that a tornado touched down in Beaver County during Wednesday night’s severe thunderstorms, the strongest twister to hit the area since 1985.
The storm spawned an EF-2 designated tornado in the Beaver Falls area. EF-2 tornadoes pack winds of 111 mph to 135 mph, according to the Enhanced Fujita tornado scale. No injuries were reported.
The strength of an EF-2 tornado can shift houses off their foundations and overturn trains.
Wednesday’s tornado was the strongest to the area since May 31, 1985, when a 243-yard wide EF3 tornado tore through Beaver and Butler counties, killing nine people and injuring 120, according to the weather service. That twister’s path was 39 miles long.
On Thursday morning, a survey team with the weather service assessed the damage in Beaver County and determined that the uprooted trees and other heavy damage indicated a tornado had touched down.
Weather service meteorologist David Shallenberger said the tornado started in the area of Beaver Falls and traveled northeast between Zelienople and Ellwood City. The agency issued a tornado warning around 9:30 Wednesday night, and it expired shortly before 10 p.m.
The weather service said another tornado was confirmed just over the Ohio state line in Leetonia.
The lines of storms that moved through Western Pennsylvania on Wednesday night downed trees and branches and snapped power lines throughout the area.
About 12,000 people were without power at the peak of outages overnight and into the earlymorning hours, according to Duquesne Light and West Penn Power. More than 1,500 households and businesses in Beaver
County lost power.
Besides Beaver, other major outages were reported in Elizabeth Township in Allegheny County and in Washington County.