F1 tornado, Ellington, Connecticut, August 16, 2000

1. F040 to 72 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. F173 to 112 mphthis tornado

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. F2113 to 157 mph

   Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

4. F3158 to 206 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. F4207 to 260 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. F5261 to 318 mph

   Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

7. Unrated

   The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

Rating

F1

Date

August 16, 2000

Touchdown

12:35 PM CDT (17:35 UTC)

Path length

1.5 miles (2.4 km)

Path width

40 yards (37 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$10,000

County

Not recorded

Touchdown point

41.900, -72.470

Lift-off point

41.900, -72.470

Record number

470

A small tornado touched down for about 5 minutes in Ellington, located in northwest Tolland County. It was an unusual tornado which spun up in a low level convergence area immediately along a cold front. There were several eyewitness accounts of a rotating funnel cloud, and the tornado first touched down on a trailer store along Route 83 in the northern part of Ellington. A total of 27 trailers were blown around and were left lying in different directions. One trailer, which weighed nearly 1,400 pounds, was lifted upward to a height of 35 feet and carried 60 yards. A cow barn, consisting of a galvanized steel frame, was damaged. Several trees were uprooted and many branches snapped off. Based upon the damage observed, the tornado was classified as an F1 with wind speeds of 73 to 112 mph. The damage path was one and a half miles long and 40 yards wide. It traveled from the west-northwest to the east-southeast. No injuries were reported and there was only minimal damage.

Formed along a cold front

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

Hartford/Bradley (BDL), 18 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Boston radar (KBOX), 110 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:35 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2000 tornado in ConnecticutEvery tornado in Connecticut since 1950Warnings in force in Connecticut nowThe forecast where you are

1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.