Today in 1856, a derecho struck in places like Ohio and Pennsylvania. Its peak intensity seems to have been from roughly Cleveland to just east of Philadelphia.
In Philadelphia, a tornado spawned by the derecho demolished an iron works boiler house while the derecho itself blew down several houses in the region, from Maryland to New Jersey. An apparent tornado in Alliance, Ohio unroofed barns for miles and, according to the Daily Pittsburgh Gazette, "not a barn within twenty miles escaped injury." In Smithfield, Ohio, nearly all of the buildings were reportedly demolished. 4 miles to the east, near Damascus, more buildings were leveled while a "clean swathe" of the forest was cut.
A "fine new" bridge across the Allegheny River at Kittanning, PA, recently opened, was lifted from its piers and tossed into the river. According to the same Pittsburgh paper, "At Kittanning, the storm partook of the nature of a whirlwind as trees and roofs appear to have been thrown in different directions." Several other bridges were destroyed, including one over the Juniata River at Huntingdon. A distillery was destroyed in Williamsport. $50,000 in damages were done when the York Furnace Bridge over the Susquehanna lost 4 spans.
Near Parkesburg, PA, a railroad engine was destroyed when it crashed into a car that had been blown off a siding onto the main track.
There were numerous other instances of significant damage from this derecho. If Tornado Archive is correct, there was a tornado near Gallitzin, PA, but I'm unable to verify that.
Other notable April 12 events include the very violent Rocksprings, TX tornado of 1927 and the Antlers, OK tornado of 1945. These are 2 incredible tornado events.
The Antlers tornado was a half-mile wide monster that spun through the small town situated near the foot of the rugged Kiamichi Mountains - well outside the usual flat country we associate with OK twisters. Allegedly the tornado was heard from as far as 25 miles away! Take that with a grain of salt, I suppose. 600 (!) structures were destroyed - notably one neighborhood of 15 houses had only 1 home standing. Houses were blown away completely, with no trace; cars were dropped thousands of feet from their original spot; one tractor trailer was reportedly mangled and tossed a mile from its original spot. 69 people were killed, 1,500+ were homeless, and 10%+ of the town's residents were killed or hospitalized. Other tornadoes, some intense, were noted from eastern Oklahoma through the Ozark Mountains, with a few small ones in western Illinois.
The Rocksprings tornado was an estimated mile wide tornado that was either rain-wrapped or a ground-scraping meso because it lacked any visible funnel. Grazulis estimated that the tornado destroyed 235 of the 247 buildings in town. With the exception of the 1975 Pearsall tornado, this part of Texas has seldom seen a violent tornado before or since.
