Tornadoes in New England happen (~3 every year in Massachusetts). Heck, just last week there appeared to be a legit tornado threat in New England but there were no tornadoes! I even wrote a blog about the process of tornado formation (Tornadogenesis) last week and that we know how it works but forecasting it well in advance is still a challenge. Enter last night……a line of rain, downpours with no strong signals of tornado formation in southern New England yet at 3am, the Doppler radar indicated rotation inside one of the downpours near Marlborough. The rotation moved across the Concord area and a tornado affected the town for about 10 minutes. The National Weather Service issued the tornado warning around 19 minutes before the storm reached Concord—amazing lead time! The storm survey team also reported this about the tornado:
- Estimated Time was 3:20-3:30a
- EF-1, wind speeds around 100 mph
- The storm travelled 1/2 mile with a damage width of 400 yards
- No Injuries and No Deaths!No injuries and no deaths (we saw that during the Revere Tornado as well) is remarkable considering the population density of eastern Massachusetts. The fact that the tornado hit at 3am was also rare–very rare –considering the last overnight tornado in Massachusetts occurred on July 11th, 1970.
A powerful cold front was the cause of the storm and that front blasted offshore early this morning ushering in some delightful late summer/early fall weather for a few days. in fact, tomorrow morning I would lean more on the *early fall* moniker as many cities and towns will start the day with their temps near 50 (even some upper 40s in the normally cool spots)! During the day, sunshine slowly takes the chill out of the air and delightful late summer weather is the rule with afternoon temps near 80 as well as low humidity. Such an awesome day.
The rest of the week does see a warming trend as afternoon temps are in the mid & upper 80s but humidity remains low so it’s more of a dry heat than what we dealt with a couple of weeks back. In terms of badly needed rainfall, a few isolated thunderstorms are possible late Friday afternoon.
Sleep easy tonight, no tornadoes expected.
~JR