Tornado touched down in Westmoreland County, NWS says

LIGONIER TOWNSHIP, Pa. — The National Weather Service confirmed Wednesday afternoon an EF-1 tornado with speeds reaching 100 miles per hour touched down near Berkeley Road and McCurdy Trail around 3:15 a.m.

“It just sounded like a freight train coming right toward our house,” said Troy Wilson. “It was pretty intense.”

PHOTOS: Multiple tornadoes touch down in Pittsburgh region, leaving behind path of destruction

Wilson lives with his family at a home off of Berkeley Road and McCurdy Trail in Ligonier, right in the path of the tornado.

Wilson studied meteorology in college and was awake watching the radar as the storms rolled in overnight. He said just after 3 a.m. he saw indications of rotation in the atmosphere.

“I was a little bit worried knowing that was generally coming towards our house, so I was definitely a bit concerned,” Wilson said.

He woke his family up and they went into the basement to wait it out.

“On our way down the basement steps, we could hear debris hitting the garage doors and the side of the house,” said Kim Wilson, Troy’s mom. “I guess I sort of panicked, but we were all right there together following each other down the steps, and I knew my son had a good idea what was going on.”

The house had a little bit of damage to the siding.

But now clean up of all of the downed trees in the road and their yard is underway.

The National Weather Service was out surveying the damage Wednesday afternoon. They knew it was a tornado, but because it was mostly tree damage, it took a little longer to determine this was an EF-1 with wind speeds reaching 95 to 100 miles per hour.

They used a few indicators with the tree damage to determine the storm’s strength.

“Was this tree a strong tree, was it a tree, was it a hardwood was it a softwood, was there any rot to it, could it have come down with other trees, did it get uprooted, did it snap? And then we use that to kind of determine the strength of the storm,” said Alicia Miller, with the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh.

“It’s pretty incredible what those winds can do,” Troy Wilson said.

The Wilsons are just glad they’re all okay.

“We just praise the lord that everybody is okay,” Kim Wilson said. “God is good. All the time.”

This tornado was one of three that touched down during overnight storms. A tornado also touched down in Hancock County, West Virginia, which is near the Pennsylvania border. A third touched down in Allegheny County near the Pittsburgh international Airport.

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