Severe thunderstorms in Pennsylvania
1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) showed severe thunderstorms that moved across Pennsylvania on 02 October 2018, producing large hail, damaging winds and a few tornadoes (SPC storm reports). A parallax-corrected version of the animation — which shifts the location of SPC storm reports northwestward, to be more closely aligned with the storm-top features (assumed to be at a mean altitude of 12 km, based on 00 UTC Pittsburgh rawinsonde data) seen on satellite imagery — is available here.The corresponding GOES-16 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images (below) indicated that the coldest cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures were in the -60 to -70ºC range (red to black enhancement).
Updated listing of confirmed tornadoes from Tuesday's outbreak. 19 tornadoes have been confirmed with 14 tornadoes in PA, 3 in NY, and 2 in CT. 4 of the tornadoes were EF-2, 9 were EF-1, and 6 were EF-0. pic.twitter.com/xst6J9hhBI
— NWS Eastern Region (@NWSEastern) October 5, 2018
Just how rare are tornadoes in October? Very Rare…especially strong tornadoes like EF-2 or higher. In the last 50 years and in a 75 mile radius, there has only been two EF-0, four EF-1, three EF-2, and one EF-3 documented within 10 days of Oct 2nd. #PAwx #OHwx #ThisIsCLE #CLEwx pic.twitter.com/niwZdx6QZQ
— NWS Cleveland (@NWSCLE) October 3, 2018
UPDATE: We are now up to 14 confirmed tornadoes from Tuesday's event in Pennsylvania – that is more than the entire October #tornado count from 1950-2017 (13 total) #pawx pic.twitter.com/uNF5f7kLbn
— Weather World (@WeatherWorldPSU) October 5, 2018
Its been a wild year with the first recorded tornado in February in our service area! Prior to Tuesday only five recorded tornadoes ever in October since 1950. We beat that October number in one day with six and possibly more! #pawx
— NWS Pittsburgh (@NWSPittsburgh) October 5, 2018