As of Thursday evening, the National Weather Service had confirmed 18 tornadoes, 13 of which tore through Pennsylvania.
This count could rise, pending results from additional NWS damage surveys and aerial photos from the Pennsylvania Civil Air Patrol.
The 13 tornadoes smashed the state’s previous October record from Oct. 5, 1979, of four tornadoes, according to the National Weather Service office in State College.
Perhaps most stunning was in the 67-year record from 1950 through 2017: Only 13 October tornadoes had been documented in the Keystone State, according to NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.