NWS confirms tornado in Peters Township
Mike Jones/Observer-Reporter
Trees were uprooted and homes on Sunsrise Lane were damaged following Thursday night’s tornado in Peters Township.
Mike Jones/Observer-Reporter
Crews from MCS Tree Service work Sunday to remove trees on Springdale Road that were damaged by Thursday night’s tornado in Peters Township.
Mike Jones/Observer-Reporter
Mike Jones/Observer-Reporter
A man walks around a fallen tree near a Sienna Trail home in Peters Township.
Mike Jones/Observer-Reporter
This tree that was toppled by Thursday night’s tornado in Peters Township narrowly missed this house on Sienna Trail.
Residents and crews were out Sunday afternoon cleaning up fallen trees and debris after a tornado swept through a portion of Peters Township on Thursday night.
The National Weather Service in Pittsburgh confirmed that a tornado with peak winds of 95 mph touched down near Peters Lake Park and cut a 1½-mile path traveling east through the township.
The tornado, which the weather service classified as EF-1 on a wind intensity scale from 0 to 5, did the most damage near Springdale Road and Sunrise Lane, uprooting trees and blowing off shingles and siding from some homes before dissipating near Bower Hill Road. The tornado touched down at 8:07 p.m. and lasted about three minutes, according to the weather service.
Phil and Nancy Hobbs were working outside of their Sunrise Lane home with other neighbors Sunday afternoon picking up debris and making repairs to their homes.
Phil Hobbs said the lights in their house began flickering Thursday night and the wind picked up for about 30 seconds, just moments before they received the tornado warning on their phones. He looked in the backyard and saw trees down and other damage.
“Not good,” Phil Hobbs said he thought when he surveyed the damage immediately after the storm passed.
Their house lost some of its siding and sustained damage to its roof, as did several other nearby properties. But neighbors were working together to help each other clean up before an insurance adjuster was expected to visit the Hobbs’ property Monday.
“It’s a good street,” Nancy Hobbs said. “Very helpful people.”
No one was injured, but the storms Thursday night rattled the region.
The tornado was from the same cell that spawned a tornado in Jefferson County, Ohio, and a stronger EF-2 tornado that damaged homes and farms in Hopewell and Mt. Pleasant townships a few miles to the west of Peters Township. The weather service said that tornado carved a 15-mile path from near the West Virginia state line to just north of Houston, with wind speeds reaching 130 mph at some points.
The weather service sent out teams Saturday to track the paths of the two tornadoes that touched down in Washington County, which were part of an outbreak in which 10 tornadoes were reported in the area Thursday night.
According to NWS Pittsburgh records, the region has averaged three or four tornadoes a year since 1950, but it has experienced 32 tornadoes so far this year, including 15 this month. The NWS documented only 11 tornadoes in the month of October from 1950 to 2020.