Tornado Warning Issued for Central Lancaster County, PA
This alert is no longer in effect.
NOAA issued it on August 20, 2026, 3 days ago. Warnings of this kind stay in effect for hours to a few days, so this page is a historical record of what was issued, not a current warning. For conditions where you are right now, check weather.gov (US), weather.gc.ca (Canada), the Met Office (UK), or the Bureau of Meteorology (Australia).
Areazine synthesizes this NWS weather alert directly from NOAA's official public data feed. See our methodology for full source attribution and refresh cadence.
NWS State College PA has issued a Tornado Warning for central Lancaster County until 5:00 PM EDT on August 20, 2026, due to radar-indicated rotation in a severe thunderstorm.
Read this weather record in 30 seconds
- Record type
- Tornado Warning
- Affected area
- Lancaster County, PA
- Issued
- August 20, 2026
- Issuing authority
- NWS State College PA
Tornado warnings are short-window notices for the named area. The issuing office is the authority on whether the warning remains active or has been replaced.
Record status: historical. It was issued 3 days ago; use the issuing agency's live warning service for current conditions in Lancaster County, PA.
Alert Details
Tornado Warning issued by NWS State College PA. Effective from 2026-08-20T16:29:00-04:00 until 2026-08-20T17:00:00-04:00. Severity: Extreme. Urgency: Immediate. Certainty: Observed.
Affected Areas
Central Lancaster County in south central Pennsylvania, including areas near Mountville, Columbia, Millersville, Lancaster, East Petersburg, Willow Street, Leola, Leacock, and Bareville. Other impacted locations include Smoketown, Washington Boro, Gordonville, Bird-In-Hand, and Conestoga.
What You Should Do
TAKE COVER NOW! Move to a basement or an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building. Avoid windows. If you are outdoors, in a mobile home, or in a vehicle, move to the closest substantial shelter and protect yourself from flying debris.
Expected Conditions
Severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado, moving east at 25 mph. Radar indicated rotation. Max hail size up to 0.75 inches. Hazard includes tornado with flying debris dangerous to those without shelter. Mobile homes may be damaged or destroyed. Damage to roofs, windows, vehicles, and trees is likely.
Timeline
Alert effective August 20 at 4:29 PM EDT and expires August 20 at 5:00 PM EDT.
Original source: NOAA Official Notice ↗
Related Weather Alerts
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Two Areazine-derived peer sets for this NWS weather alert: nearest notices by body length and by same severity near the same agency date. Peers come from other categories so they are not the same-feed Related list above.
Similar body length
Nearest notices by article body length (1,207 characters here).
Similar severity timing
Same severity (high) notices issued closest in time to August 20, 2026.
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