1985-05-31 OH/PA/NY Outbreak

[William Monfredo]

A decade before I went back to graduate school, I lived in Harrisburg, PA, and I watched the public station that broadcasted a 4 o'clock weather briefing that originated out of Penn State / State College. Paul Knight, who later became the State Climatologist, did the on-air forecast. He said that a tornado watch had been issued, but he didn't think much would come of it. Obviously, he was banking on the cap holding and a continuation of clear skies in eastern Ohio and western PA. Little more than an hour later, all hell broke loose. With all due respect, and as a scientists myself, I can say that the boom & bust nature of severe storms resulted in what I believe to this day was the most wrong forecast I have ever seen. Sorry Paul. Almost two dozen storms, some strong and violent, killed scores of people in PA. Once we think we know what mother nature will do, she throws a curve.

 

[TrumanBoyer]

Morning of May 3 1999 most of us did not think that much would come of the Moderate Risk.

The 85 outbreak was similar in many ways. There was clear air most of the day, even though it was Hot and Humid.
Very unusual for eastern systems, where it is always hazy. Around here, we seldom see any real storm structure because of the Haze.
Most times the sky just gets dark, and then the thunder and rain comes.

I remember this event mostly because I was just starting to learn about weather, and it was one of the very first times I could see an entire anvil down to the base. I told my girlfriend that a storm was coming, she did not believe me because "the sky isn't dark enough". We were under blue sky at that time.

I made a believer out of her. Less than 10 minutes later, nickel-size hail made us run for cover.
I remember I held a cup out in the open to collect hail, and then I got a Coke and poured over it.

It wasn't until later I heard about the tornadoes north of where we were. And a few days later I saw the miles-long caravans of Amish in horses and buggies taking food and supplies north to help out. (Amish storm chasers ??)

The fact that the skies were clear for most of the day contributed to people, including forecasters, disregarding the watch.
This made it all that much worse when the radar, in about 25 minutes, went from clear sky to dozens of supercells scattered over hundred of miles.

Like... BOOM !!

On one of the few VHS videos that survives, you can hear 2 people talking, it went something like...
"is that a tornado ??"
"Yeah, ...I think so, but we don't get them here"
(I was about a half mile wedge, and they could only see the back edge of it surrounded by blue sky)
"look at all that paper flying around"
"yeah, what a mess"

Later, analysis showed that the "paper" was sections of roofs and walls, and roof tin from barns, etc.
It was an F5, and they were so casual, because "we never get tornadoes around here" and they never
heard a warning. We don't have tornado sirens around here, and if we did they'd just think it was a fire alarm...

-T

 

[TrumanBoyer]

Almost Forgot !

I almost forgot.

John Fuller wrote a best seller about this outbreak.
I think a lot of it was overdramatized, but it is still a great read.
One of the best tornado books written before 1990.

It is enlightening to look back at the "state of the art" in 1985.
Like Cray X-MP supercomputers with 400 MFLOPS and 16 Megabytes of RAM, etc.

Tornado Watch #211
by John Grant Fuller

ISBN-10: 0688065902
ISBN-13: 978-0688065904

-Truman

 

[Roy Britt]

With the 27th anniversary of this outbrake today i made a video from material i collected back in 1985 and added it to YouTube.

http://youtu.be/mt2jS_qjpkk

 

[Andy Berrington]

Thirtieth anniversary of this historic outbreak tomorrow, my second article on US Tornadoes focuses on this most unique event: http://www.ustornadoes.com/2015/05/31/may-31-1985-a-tornado-outbreak-out-of-place/#more-6420

 

[John Paulson]

State College PA NWS story on the events of that day

http://www.weather.gov/ctp/TornadoOutbreak_May311985

 

[John Paulson]

I remember the day before we had Severe weather in Minnesota from this same system but not as bad. It was the last day of school in my hometown and it was a warm humid day. We got out of school at about 1:30 and IIRC there was a Tornado Watch issued in the late afternoon. I also recall there were a number of Severe Thunderstorm Warnings issued but only one Tornado Warning unlike what happened the next day