Stats
Path length: 28 miles
Width: 2100 yards
Fatalities: 0
Injuries: 19
Rating: F4
County: Erie, Warren (PA) / Chautauqua (NY)
Tornado Path
SPC coordinates: Start: 41.93 / -79.95 End: 42.02 / -79.57
Corrected coordinates based on analysis of aerial and satellite imagery:
Start: 41.936399 / -79.947528 End: 42.04107 / -79.441751
Introduction
A violent twister, spawned by the same supercell as the Albion F4 tornado, tracked for 28 miles through Erie, Warren, counties in northwestern PA, and Chautauqua County, NY. At its widest point, the funnel reached 2100 yards (1.20 miles), causing injuries to 19 people and inflicting severe damage on multiple farms.
Summary
The same supercell that spawned the infamous Albion, F4 tornado, produced this one. It began approximately 17.5 miles east of where the Albion twister lifted, or about 2 miles southeast of Waterford. The narrow but intense vortex churned east across mostly wooded areas, impacting a few homes. Three miles north of Union City, Lyle Lozier watched it coming directly toward him from his front porch on Route 8. He snapped a photo of the twister, which is seen above. Along Route 8, the funnel demolished four homes and several farm buildings. 30 head of cattle were killed at one farm, and a wagon was found in the woods over a mile away. Two injuries occurred in this area.
Two miles to the east, near the intersection of Lyon Road and Fenno Road, the funnel tore into the Bisbee Farm. Several barns were leveled, and the house was badly damaged. Seventy cattle were killed. At the nearby Fenno Farm, everything was demolished with the exception of a silo. Richard Fenno and his two sons, Steven and Douglas, were in their barn when the twister struck. All three of them were pinned under the wreckage, but were able to free themselves. The Fennos lost 65 cattle. A house on Lyon Road was actually seen airborne before it smashed to the ground and was completely destroyed.
Passing about 3 miles north of Elgin, the now ¾ mile-wide wedge tornado was photographed as it crossed Route 89. The photographer was near the Beaver Dam Cemetery, looking north. A large brick house lost most of its roof.
After leaving Route 89, the tornado funnel expanded and shifted northeast. Crossing Donation Road, it completely destroyed and partially swept away at least three residences. A 52,000-pound dump truck was lifted from a driveway, carried over a house, and landed upside down. Among the destroyed homes was that of Clay and Patricia Anderson, who were already facing significant hardship. Their 17-year-old daughter, Sandy, had suffered a seizure on April 20th and developed a rash and fever by May 25th, leading to an emergency liver transplant in Pittsburgh on May 30th. That same day, their 15-year-old son, Rick, was involved in a motorcycle accident. Sherry, Sandy’s twin sister, was home alone when the tornado struck. According to the June 2, 1985, Erie Times-News article, she saw a warning for Albion on television and then went to sleep. She awoke later, noticing extreme wind and a sound like rocks hitting the house. She went to the basement just before the upstairs windows shattered. A large piece of metal then blew into the basement and pinned her, resulting in cuts and a foot injury requiring surgery.
15-year-old Ed Schmitt Jr. had just finished celebrating his birthday at McDonald’s in Corry and headed north of town to Wiggers Canoe Store, with his father and brother. This was located near the intersection of Route 426 and Crosscut Road, about a mile south of Wheelock. Ed was going to get a life vest for a canoe trip he planned to take later that summer. Ed Sr. and Dave Wigger, the owner of the shop, were discussing the differences in the types of life jackets when they heard a loud banging on the roof of the shop. Golf ball-sized hail started falling, and the group all went outside to watch it. Per his 2010 post in the “May 31, 1985 Tornado Outbreak Remembered” Facebook group, the kids were throwing hail at each other.
After a few minutes, everyone went back inside and then started hearing a loud, strange noise. Dave went outside and saw the twister coming down the hill about 100 yards away. He yelled for everyone to get into his basement, at his house next door. The Schmitts, Dave Wigger, and another customer, Sam Hamilton, ran 30 feet into Dave’s house and took cover in the basement.
The twister hit just as the group went to the bottom of the cellar steps. The storm passed, revealing the complete destruction of Wigger’s Canoe store and house. Dave emerged with minor cuts. Ed Sr’s truck,and other vehicles that were in the parking lot were blown ½ mile away, landing in a swamp. Low-lying shrubbery at the swamp showed signs of debarking. The twister was likely at peak intensity as it swept across this area. It was also here that the tornado reached its maximum width of 2100 yards (1.20 miles). Some canoes from the store were found 20 miles away in Busti, NY, which ironically is where the next tornado in this family of twisters began.
Further east on Crosscut Road sat the homestead of Denny and Susan Anderson. The house was built just one year before the twister struck. On the 30th anniversary, Denny recounted on Facebook how his son, hearing a tornado warning on the radio, alerted Susan. Seeing fast-moving clouds and bending trees, Susan grabbed their two children and headed to the basement. As they reached the bottom of the stairs, similar to the experience at the Wiggers’ residence, their house “exploded,” and all three sustained cuts and bruises from flying debris. Several other homes on Crosscut Road and northeast on Scotia Road were also destroyed.
16-year-old Chris Phillips was sitting down to eat pizza with his family at their house on Spirit Hill Road, when golf ball-sized hail started to fall. After about ten minutes, the hail stopped, but then leaves started raining down, so they went back inside to finish eating. Chris glanced out the bay windows that faced west and noticed “black objects” being tossed above the hill, which he then realized were cows from the Katren farm. Chris’s dad yelled for them all to take cover in the basement. They got down there and realized their dachshund was still upstairs. Chris’s brother went up to get the dog, and she couldn’t be found, so he grabbed his new boombox and went back into the basement.
After they knew the storm had passed, they emerged to find that every window in the house was broken, and their pup was hiding behind the couch, but it was okay. His father’s Ford Bronco was thrown about 50 yards, and his mother’s Dodge K was on its side. Their next-door neighbor, Jerry Hepler’s house, was swept away, with only the basement walls remaining. Jerry wasn’t home, and the Phillips family shut off the leaking gas lines at his residence. The family also found some strange things around their property, such as canoes from Wiggers Canoe Store, which was two miles southwest of them, and straw embedded into trees.
The last damage that this tornado caused in Erie County occurred about 4.4 miles northeast of Corry on Plank Road. It leveled the house of Jack and Margaret Raymond. It then crossed into far northeast Warren County. The massive funnel tore across Factory Road and Schraming Road, before crossing into Chautauqua County, NY. A few homes and farm buildings were struck, but the details of the damage there are not known. Satellite imagery revealed that a 2.5-mile-long by 2000-yard-wide swath of trees was blown down.
The tornado crossed into New York, about 3.75 miles southeast of Clymer. For the next 7 miles, the twister traversed through rural areas north of Bear Lake and south of Panama. It narrowed dramatically. About a dozen homes were destroyed, and many barns were torn up in this area, and one man was injured when a tree fell onto his house. At Caruso Dairy Farm, near Clymer, five calves were killed. As the funnel crossed Goshen Road, about 2 miles north of Bear Lake, Clarence Raymond was lifted into the air by the tornado, as a nearby trailer loaded with 49,000 pounds of milk was tossed 20 feet. The twister then entered a wooded area where it dissipated two miles north-northeast of Niobe in the Hill Higher State Forest.
Photo Gallery
All of the photos below were taken by Bruce Burr north of Corry, the locations weren’t given.
Discrepancies:
We gathered information for this event from the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) and National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) Databases, The NWS State College Summary, The NWS Cleveland and NWS State College Databases, Thomas Grazulis’ Significant Tornadoes: 1974-2022 publication, as well as newspaper accounts, and found the following differences:
Path Width:
- The SPC, NCDC, NWS Cleveland Tornado Database, the NWS State College Summary lists a 440 yard path width.
- Thomas Grazulis in Significant Tornadoes 1974-2022 lists a 350 yard path width.
- The NWS State College Database lists a 500 yard path width.
- Upon examining Google Earth Historical Imagery, and plotting out all known damage reports, we found a 2100 yard (1.20 miles) path width.
- The NWS State College Database lists a 500 yard path width.
Injuries:
- The SPC, NCDC, NWS Cleveland Tornado Database list 0 injuries.
- Thomas Grauzlis in Significant Tornadoes 1974-2022 lists 17 injuries and notes that all of the injuries occurred in Pennsylvania.
- The NWS State College Summary Lists 12 injuries.
- Local Newspapers reported two injuries in NY that are not listed by the other sources, therefore there were 19 injuries.
Sources
The sources compiled in our research for this summary can be found here.
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