Tornado in NYC?

[N2NH]

The jury is still out, the Weather Service is mulling it over, but the storm we had here tonight has a lot of the signs of a tornado...

A brief but fierce storm roared through New York City on Thursday evening, throwing down trees like sticks, crippling debris-strewn neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island, disrupting commuter rail service and killing at least one person.

The storm and its aftereffects bore many of the hallmarks of a tornado, with the tops of countless trees sheared off and roofs blown off houses, but National Weather Service officials were still analyzing data to determine whether it should be classified as one.

The fast-moving storm, with winds estimated at 60 to 80 miles an hour, caused widespread damage. There were numerous reports of small fires, power failures and damage to homes, stores and vehicles.

It was pretty interesting. During the storm, one very loud nearby lightning strike echoed for half a minute. This was more like a spring storm than what we usually get at this time of year. I guess the seasons are changing quickly...

Pictures here.

Story here.

[W1GUH]

Somebody here predicted this recently. Don't have time to look up who, but the expression was "Tornado Alley has moved to New York. Thankfully, I missed most of it.

[KG4CGC]

They were replaying that for a long while on TWC. At first, because I saw the LIVE on the screen and it was still daylight on TV but quite dark by 8:30pm here, it was just a tad confusing. I was sure that even though in the same time zone, it gets dark sooner in NY.

[N2NH]

They were replaying that for a long while on TWC. At first, because I saw the LIVE on the screen and it was still daylight on TV but quite dark by 8:30pm here, it was just a tad confusing. I was sure that even though in the same time zone, it gets dark sooner in NY.

SC is quite a bit west of us so the sun will set later. It's about as far west as the east coast goes. Also, the further south you go, the longer the day during the winter. It's the opposite during the summer. We should be about even right now since the equinox is coming up. We get the benefit of longer sunsets though.

There is a LOT of light here at night.

[n2ize]

Anytime you have a rotating thunderstorm you have the potential for a tornado. While it's unclear if there was a tornado the description of the widespread damage and impact sounds like it could also have been the affect of a very strong thunderstorm with high winds and/or strong mesocyclone. These have to potential for serious damage even in no actual tornado ever appears.

Seems that Queens and Brooklyn NY got hit the worst.

[N8YX]

A number of towns about 30 miles to the south of mine got hit last evening by a tornado. A couple coworkers live in or were traveling in the affected areas - boss's daughter barely managed to escape the storm as it crossed SR57.

Our 6M Skywarn backbone frequency was pretty active with a blow-by-blow account of the cell in question as it tracked from Ashland towards Wooster, Apple Creek, Millersburg and New Philadelphia. All of these towns sustained damage.

I was thinking about chasing the event yesterday afternoon but didn't really care for the setup - too much low-level slop in the vicinity, and I figured that visibility wouldn't be that spectacular. Our supercells tend to be rain-wrapped (HP types) and atmospheric conditions around 4PM certainly indicated that's what would be on tap. Given the fact that shear profiles weren't very noteworthy and the synopsis favored line-type rather than discrete cells, I sat this one out.

Evidently it was MUCH clearer few miles to my south...with decent helicity values and an accompanying break in the squall line which allowed that one cell to get enough inflow to spin up.

[W2NAP]

spring is like fall. if conditions are right tornado can happen any place, any time.

but hell id say Indiana's tornado season runs Jan-Dec.

[W5RB]

The removal of tree tops tends to indicate tornado . NWS will send analysts to look at the pattern of damage and debris scatter , and compare that with radar images from the incident before deciding what to call it . Straight-line winds ahead of a front can be very damaging , and I've seen damage from downward microbursts confined to a 300-foot circle .

[NQ6U]

The removal of tree tops tends to indicate tornado.

As does the farmhouse that landed on the witch.

"Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas any more..."

[N8YX]

SPC Damage Reports for 9/16:



One fatality in Ohio - in Athens:

http://spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/yesterday.html

Oddly enough, the tornado I mentioned earlier (which was confirmed by a number of ground spotters) does not appear on this map. The damage path in question is located near the three blue dots which form the tip of the eastern-facing "arrowhead".