Stats
Path length: 73.4 miles
Width: 4,525 yards (2.57 miles)
Fatalities: 0
Injuries: 1
Rating: F4
Counties: Clearfield, Cameron, Centre, Clinton, Lycoming
Tornado Path
SPC coordinates: Start: 41.18 / -78.67 End: 41.22 / -77.32
Corrected coordinates based on analysis of aerial and satellite imagery:
Start: 41.180058 / -78.666386 End: 41.229211 / -77.300725
Introduction
An intense tornado began about 3 miles west of Winterburn in Clearfield County. It tracked mainly east and east-northeast for 73.4 miles before lifting in far western Lycoming County. During its long journey, the twister went through the Moshannon State Forest, felling 35,000 trees per minute as it crossed various mountains and river valleys. The massive funnel’s peak width was 2.57 miles. Despite its incredible violence and large path, it remained over mostly uninhabited areas, resulting in only 13 homes being destroyed and there was one injury.
Summary
The twister began just east of Mountain Run Road, about three miles west of Winterburn. It quickly moved east-northeast, expanding to ½ mile wide, taking down tree after tree as it seemed to follow Route 255. As it traveled through Winterburn, the twister destroyed five homes along Route 255. One of the dwellings, which was owned by Helen Wilhelm, was swept away, leaving an exposed basement. Pauline Garvin’s mobile home, just across the street from Helen’s house, was demolished, and she was hospitalized due to her injuries. Eight other homes in the Winterburn/Penfield area sustained minor to moderate damage.
The tornado crossed Route 153 about 1.5 miles southeast of Pennfield, downing a ¾ mile-wide swath of forest. Michael Mowrey, the EMA director of Clearfield County, told the Clearfield Progress that a young couple driving on Route 135 reported droves of “countless” deer and other animals fleeing across the roadway just before the twister hit. It slashed down Sullivan Hill into Stokes Mine and the Lady Jane Collieries. At Lady Jane, Larry Graham saw “two funnel clouds merging.” The tornado missed his truck, but he watched as it lifted 1,000 gallons of water from a pond. A shower house, a 34,000-volt power line, and switchgear were destroyed there. The roof of a shop building was blown off and landed 200 yards away.
The violent tornado, now likely at peak intensity, ripped into the Parker Dam State Park, where thousands of trees were snapped, uprooted, debarked, and splintered. The massive 1.25-mile-wide funnel enveloped nearly the whole park. Twenty-five camps and 50 buildings were damaged or destroyed within the park. This included an an octagonal cabin, which was about 8/10th of a mile north of the Parker Dam near the intersections of Mud Run and Tyler Roads. Three boy scouts and their fathers had just arrived at the dwelling and had finished unloading firewood from the truck. Howard Hunt and his seven-year-old son Ken were standing on the cabin’s porch while the others were hanging out inside when they heard the loud roar of the twister coming. They ran inside, and the five-some took cover in the cabin. The roof peeled off the structure, and Ken was nearly sucked out. Howard told GANT News in 2015, “I was holding onto my youngest son’s (Ken’s) hand, and the other father was holding onto his other hand. He was just swinging up and down in the air.” Despite this, none of them were injured. Howard’s truck was thrown against the cabin, and a tree was impaled into it.
For the next 14 miles, the twister mowed down thousands of trees in uninhabited areas of the Moshannon State Forest. It ripped into the PermaGrain Products, which was located 0.60 miles south of the border between Elk, Cameron, and Clearfield Counties. It was on the northern edge of the twister’s path. There was an initial fear that a radiation leak was possible at PermaGrain Products due to the storm’s impact. However, no leak ultimately occurred. Per the June 1, 1985 edition of the Clearfield Progress, “Larry Griest, manager of the facility that uses a pool containing cobalt fuel rods to make wood acrylic flooring, said he saw the tornado mow down the mountain behind the PermaGrain plant area just before it struck the building at 8:00 pm, knocking holes through walls and the roof. He said a small fire that broke outside the plant was put out by two employees using fire extinguishers. The fire was not near the pool.” An office trailer outside of the plant and a utility shed were “flattened.” Larry described the tornado as “An enormous expanse of black sky that appeared to be mowing off a mountain top and sounded a little bit like eight to 10 freight trains.” Larry’s car was buried under fallen trees; thankfully, the trailer he and his family lived in was spared. A nearby 85-foot tall H-Frame transmission tower was pulled out of the ground leaving a “clean, neat hole” in the ground.
Crossing into the far southwestern part of Cameron County, the twister carved a 1-mile-wide by 4-mile-long swath through the Quehanna Wild Area before heading into Clinton County. Around this time, The WSR 77 radar in State College detected a debris ball as the tornado was lofting trees into the air. In this remote area of western Clinton County, the only known structural damage was to a cabin which was leveled.
Next, the tornado traversed the Susquehanna River, south of Keating, into the northernmost tip of Centre County. The twister reached its peak width of 2.57 miles. Due to the rugged terrain with mountains and river valleys, this area’s damage pattern was very complex. The funnel crossed back into Clinton County. Aerial photographs were taken by Dr. Greg Forbes of the area west of Route 144, about 5 miles south-southwest of Shinntown. A narrow swath of intense tree damage occurred at the core of the vortex. In this area, every single old-growth tree was mowed down and debarked. Along Route 144, a Forestry Bureau camp was struck, with a garage and a cabin being leveled, and another house sustained minor damage. The Coffin Rock fire tower was toppled east of the camp.
From Coffin Rock, the massive twister gradually narrowed and weakened, and the blowdown became weaker and more sporadic. However, as it crossed Pine Creek into Lycoming County, it briefly intensified on the hillside east of Torbert, flattening a 1-mile-long by 600-yard-wide swath of trees. At the base of Short Mountain along Furnace Run Road, 2.71 miles northwest of Jersey Shore, the twister’s ramage finally ended.
The tornado was detected on the seismograph at the Earth and Mineral Sciences building at Penn State, in State College. Per the NWS State College 30th Anniversary Summary, some meteorologists speculated if this tornado was an F5; however, it didn’t strike anything that would warrant an F5 rating, thus a final rating of F4 was used.
Per the NCDC, the twister caused $75 million in damage, $25 million each in Clearfield, Centre, and Clinton Counties. However, most of that damage would’ve been in Clearfield County and would not have spread out equally between the three counties. Factoring in inflation, that would be $355 million in 2024.
Discrepancies:
We gathered information for this event from the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) and National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) Databases, the May 1985 Storm Data Publication, Thomas Grazulis’ Significant Tornadoes: 1974-2022 and Tornado Nature’s Ultimate Windstorm publications, the National Weather Service (State College) event summary, Google Earth Historical Imagery, local newspapers, and found the following differences:
Path Length:
- The SPC, NCDC, NWS State College Tornado Database, the NWS State College Summary, and Thomas Grazulis in Significant Tornadoes 1974-2022 list a 69-mile path length.
- The May 1985 Storm Data Publication has a 75-mile path length.
- We found a 73.4-mile path length when plotting out all known damage reports and damage seen via Google Earth Historical Imagery.
Path Width:
- The SPC, NCDC, and the NWS State College Summary list a path width of 3330 yards (1.89 miles).
- The NWS State College Tornado Database lists a 3520-yard (2 miles) path width.
- The May 1985 Storm Data Publication Lists the path width at 1.50 miles wide (2640 yards).
- Thomas Grazulis is Significant Tornadoes 1974-2022 Lists a path width at 2500 yards (1.42 miles).
- In his book “Tornado Nature’s Ultimate Windstorm,” Thomas Grazulis notes that this tornado was 2.2 miles wide (3872 yards) and states: “Despite the inaccuracies and changing policies, the tornado with the widest official width, 9,990 feet (1.90 miles), turns out to be a worthy first choice. The actual maximum width of this tornado was 2.2 miles, and it may have been one of the great tornadic events of the century, although no one may have seen it. It cut a continuous 69-mile-long path, mostly across the Moshannon State Forest in Pennsylvania, on May 31, 1985. The actual 2.2-mile (11,600-foot) maximum width cannot be recorded in the official database. The largest three-digit number that the data file can handle is 999, or 9,990 feet.”
- Based on Google Earth Historical Imagery as well as plotting the damage reports, we found a 2.57 mile (4525 yards) wide path as its widest.
Counties:
- The SPC, the May 1985 Storm Data Publication, and NCDC only document Clearfield, Centre, and Clinton Counties.
- The NWS State College Tornado Database, and Thomas Grazulis in Significant Tornadoes 1974-2022 document Clearfield, Cameron, Centre, and Clinton Counties.
- After analyzing Google Earth Historical Imagery, we can see that there was damage into Lycoming County. Therefore, we have included Lycoming County, in addition to Clearfield, Cameron, Centre, and Clinton Counties.
Injury Count:
- The SPC, NCDC, May 1985 Storm Data, And Thomas Grazulis in Significant Tornadoes list 0 injuries.
- The NWS State College Summary, NWS State College Database, and newspapers all reported one injury.
Sources
The sources compiled in our research for this summary can be found here.
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