The National Weather Service on Wednesday confirmed another tornado that touched down last weekend, the fourth confirmed twister in Indiana County this year after not having experienced any since 2002.
In a Tweet shortly before 1 PM, the weather service said “A storm survey…confirmed that an EF1 tornado occurred Sunday night east of Commodore in Indiana County, PA with estimated maximum winds of 105 mph.” Then just after 6 PM, they tweeted the preliminary damage assessment, writing that the storm’s path had a maximum width of 50 feet and that it ran for three-tenths of a mile, originating east of Walnut Road and traveling southwest to Vanderbilt Street.
No one was injured. The tornado snapped off a number of trees and knocked down utility wires, but there was no structure damage reported.
Two tornadoes touched down in Indiana County on May 23rd: An EF-1 packing winds of up to 90 miles per hour along High Rise Drive in Burrell Township and an EF-0 with 70 mile-per-hour winds along Goral Road in Center Township. On May 28th, an EF-0 struck in the Penn Run area along Route 553.
The tornado severity scale runs from EF0 to EF5, with anything EF2 or higher considered significant. On April 28th, 2002, an EF3 twister hit between Indiana and Homer City and an EF-0 tornado hit in the Jacksonville area.
The weather service noted that in an average year, the Pittsburgh region, of which Indiana County is a part, gets five tornadoes. This year, they’ve already confirmed 12. Pennsylvania as a whole has had 28 tornadoes this year, eight of them this week.
