NWS confirms tornado hit Fayette
Monday’s thunderstorms were accompanied by at least one tornado in Fayette County.
Survey teams from the National Weather Service’s Pittsburgh office confirmed an EF-1 tornado with maximum wind gusts of 90 mph occurred Monday south of Vanderbilt, the NWS announced Tuesday afternoon.
Most of Tuesday’s search is concentrated in northern Fayette County, near the areas of Curfew, Flatwoods and Vanderbilt, according to Jeff Craven, meteorologist in charge at the NWS office in Pittsburgh. The extended area crosses west into Washington County near Coal Center; on the other side, it stretches as far east as Connellsville.
A final assessment, including survey results, was expected to be released to the public Tuesday evening, the NWS said on social media.
“They’re going to try to get most of it done today, but it’ll take them a while,” Craven said.
To determine whether a tornado touched, teams will look at whether there’s a pattern to the damage. Straight-line winds would leave trees broken down in the same direction, whereas a tornado would leave a “convergence of damage,” where trees pointed in different directions, Craven said.
The NWS also uses the Enhanced Fujita scale to estimate wind speeds from the severity of damage — snapped branches versus a downed tree, for example. An EF-0, the mildest form of tornado, will have winds of 65 to 85 mph.
“If it is a tornado, you know, it’s likely going to be 60-, 70-, 80-mile winds, or a weak tornado,” Craven said. “We don’t expect to find a strong tornado in it, but we’ll see what happens.”
Flash flood warnings were also in effect in Fayette, Greene and Washington counties for part of the day Monday.
Craven said Wharton Furnace Road south of Elliottsville was washed out around 7:30 p.m. due to heavy rainfall — close to 3 inches in an hour. In a hilly area, those levels can cause large amounts of runoff, Craven said.
“We only get that much rainfall every 40 years in that location,” he said.
Fayette County Emergency Management said Tuesday no major storm damage had been reported beyond the usual collection of downed trees and power lines.
The storm “mostly went above and below us,” said Greene County Emergency Management Director Richard Policz. A downed tree was reported to the county, but no flooding.
The NWS hadn’t received any reports of flooding damage from Washington County, where the highest rainfall reported was around 2 inches in an hour near Ten Mile Road in the Marianna area.
“There would have been lots of water, but not necessarily enough to cause damage or close roads,” he said.
Joey Pordash, logistics/hazmat coordinator for the Washington County Department of Public Safety, said he had not heard of any incidents in the county.
Thirteen tornadoes have been reported so far this year in the NWS Pittsburgh office’s service area, including five in Fayette and Washington counties during a severe storm earlier this month.
Residents escaped with far less damage Monday that the early June storm, which left thousands without power for days.
By Tuesday morning, West Penn Power reported 80 outages in Greene County, 34 in Fayette County and 20 in Washington.