Tornadoes on Long Island?
Occurrence is not that odd
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But tornadoes on Long Island? Well, yes, actually. Tornadoes do happen here, though with much less frequency and intensity than they do in the South and Midwest.
Twenty confirmed tornadoes have hit Suffolk County since 1950, according to the National Weather Service. Only a couple of these local tornadoes have caused any significant damage, and only one -- the tornado of Aug. 8, 1999, which skipped around Cutchogue, New Suffolk and Mattituck and caused an estimated $1 million in property damage SDHp-- resulted in personal injury: Flying glass cut a Mattituck resident's leg, requiring five stitches. (Visit northshoresun.com for a link to the Aug. 12, 1999, story in The Suffolk Times describing that storm.)
With the exception of that storm and one other -- a tornado that hit East Moriches on July 10, 1989 -- all of the island's tornadoes have been on the low end of the Fujita scale, which meteorologists use to measure the power of a tornadic storm. All but those two have been F0 or F1 tornadoes, relatively weak as tornadoes go, with winds of between 65 and 110 mph. The North Fork twister of 1999 and the East Moriches storm were both classified F2, meaning their wind speeds ranged from 111 to 135 mph.
Unlike hurricanes -- with which Long Islanders are much more familiar -- tornadoes have intense winds that can cause substantial damage in very tightly confined areas. They arrive and depart with relative speed, often leaving a swath of devastation in their wake. According to the Glossary of Meteorology, a tornado is "a violently rotating column of air, in contact with the ground ... underneath a cumuliform cloud, and often (but not always) visible as a funnel cloud..."
Without eyewitnesses, it can be tricky for meteorologists to determine whether a thunderstorm cell has spawned a tornado. They must make the call based on circumstantial evidence -- looking at the extent and type of wind damage and the "path" of damage wrought by a storm.
Reports -- and images -- from trained weather watchers, the media and residents are crucial in making a determination that a tornado has struck. You can send your accounts and images to okx.spotters@noaa.gov.
Denise Civiletti
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