Parker Dam Tornado (Moshannon Forest)

25 years later ... Survivors remember Parker Dam tornado
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
By Wendy B. Lynn Staff Writer 
"Your story is legend, it still gets talked about in the meteorology community today."
Those were the words of Henry Margusity, senior meteorologist for AccuWeather, to four of the five survivors of the May 31, 1985, tornado that ripped through central Pennsylvania and Parker Dam State Park.
On Saturday, Parker Dam held a commemoration of the 25-year anniversary of the tornado's destruction. Four of the survivors, the two fathers, Marty Young and Howard Hunt, and two of the three sons, Sam Young and Ken Hunt, were present at the amphitheater to talk to audience members and employees of AccuWeather about their experiences that day. The three boys had all been younger than 12 at that time.
Marty Young began by saying that it was like all the stories say, it sounded like a locomotive - "a lot of locomotives" - and they wondered what it was at first.
It had been raining that day, the four recalled, but then the rain had stopped and suddenly everything broke loose.
"We made it from the porch to the doorway and that's it," Howard Hunt said.
Margusity said during the program that the outbreak of storms that night spun off more large tornadoes than ever have been seen in Pennsylvania, five or six F4 tornadoes. The classification of F5 is the strongest a tornado can be. He said there were 42 tornadoes altogether that night, and the F4s were all in the northwest section of Pennsylvania. Since then, there have only been a few tornadoes in Pennsylvania with two F4s in the Pittsburgh area in 1998.
He said that prior to the storms that night, the forecast had actually said, "swarm of tornadoes" which was an unprecedented event in weather forecasting for the state. Some of the weather agencies had downgraded the threat, but most knew, as the day wore on, that something big was about to break.
The five in the cabin, all on a Boy Scout camping trip, didn't know what was about to hit. Ken Hunt recalled that, just prior to the tornado coming upon them, he had looked up on the ridge above the cabin and seen flashes of light and wondered what it was. He then went into the cabin and suddenly everyone else came in too, and the storm hit. What he had seen were the high-tension power lines shorting out from the tornado bearing down on them.
Howard Hunt said they hung on to doorframes and the kids hung on to them. It seemed longer than the two minutes it actually took for the tornado to pass. Part of the roof was torn away, but the eight-sided cabin remained standing and the group theorizes that the uniquely shaped cabin may have had something to do with their surviving the storm.
One member of the audience said, "The (Civilian Conservation Corps) boys built a pretty good cabin." The cabin has since been repaired.
Margusity said that the winds of that tornado reached 250 miles per hour. The record hurricane winds are 236 mph for a typhoon off of Australia. He remarked several times that it was unbelievable that they survived.
"God had other plans for them," said Patricia Young, mother of Sam Young and wife of Marty Young. "He wasn't finished with them yet."
Carey Huber, environmental education specialist for the park, noted that in the past the survivors had said they thought a plane was crashing, to which the four agreed. He added that a former park ranger had said there hadn't been much warning of the tornado, and Margusity said that the ridge hid the tornado until it was on top of them.
According to information provided by AccuWeather, the storm traveled 69 miles in 1½ hours, beginning near Penfield. In some places the swath of the tornado was two miles wide. Unlike the "Wizard of Oz" tornadoes that are tall and thin, this one was short and squat and wedge-shaped. Much of the destructiveness of the storm came from the swirling vortices inside the tornado itself, some of which cancel each other out, while others have been know to produce the strange effects of a tornado, such as picking someone up and dropping them in a different location, or allowing a potted plant to survive the destruction of a house.
"We're just thankful we're here," Marty Young said. After a clip of the newscast presented on WTAJ-TV on the 10th anniversary, he added, "Jokes all aside, it might be a good idea to have a moment of silence for the 94 that didn't make it," referring to others who did not survive the storms that night.
Margusity gave a presentation on the storm from the viewpoint of the people working at AccuWeather that day and evening.
He said it was always going to be the outbreak that stands out in his mind.
There were more large tornadoes than ever have been in Pennsylvania. According to the records at AccuWeather, only one F5 has crossed part of the state, and it was a tornado in 1985 that started in Ohio.
Jesse Farrell, also from AccuWeather, noted that these storms put an end to the myth that tornados avoid mountains, since these crossed 1,500- to 2,000-foot mountains, and there are records of tornados topping even higher peaks.
Even as late at 2005, Margusity said, you could see the swath of the tornadoes' destruction on Google Maps or Google Earth.
That day was sunny and warm, with dry air in the upper atmosphere holding the head in below, acting like a lid and making the warm air "bubble," which creates storms. By 2 p.m. there were reports of tornadoes in Canada, but in Pennsylvania there was nothing, making meteorologists nervous.
Margusity said they knew the longer it took, the worse it would be. At 4 p.m. the storms started to form, and at 7:30 p.m. the Moshannon tornado was under way.
"It looked like a storm straight out of the plains," Farrell said.
Some statistics Margusity gave the audience included:
• there were only 10 tornadoes in Centre County since 1950, and 1985 had the largest.
• only 650 tornadoes have been reported in Pennsylvania since 1950.
• strong tornadoes, bigger than an F2, in Pennsylvania are rare.
• the strongest storms are most likely in May, but there have been tornadoes in Pennsylvania in every month, with F3 tornadoes hitting from March to September.
• the primary time for severe weather in Pennsylvania is from April 27 to Sept. 5 with the peak time between July 1-8.
The five survivors of that night in Parker Dam will never forget that night.
However, they also said they hope to return to Parker Dam in five years to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Moshannon tornado.