20 May 2024
Late Friday afternoon I saw a very dark cloud outside my window that looked almost flat like a wall. The horizon obscured the bottom edge as the cloud moved away toward Highland Park.
Shortly thereafter the cloud spawned a tornado that touched down at the Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium. The National Weather Service rated it EF1, the strongest of four tornadoes in the Pittsburgh metro area that afternoon.
Fortunately no people or animals were injured and the most dramatic damage was a car flattened by a tree in the Zoo parking lot. The video below shows local reactions including people waiting in a car on the Highland Park Bridge for the tornado to pass. Glad I was not there!
Those of you who live in severe tornado regions probably think Pittsburghers are wimps to get excited about an EF1 tornado but in fact tornadoes are rare here.
The last time one touched down in the City of Pittsburgh was in 1998. Read more about it here.