Tornadoes · United States · Maine · 2001

F1 tornado, Newry, Maine, June 17, 2001

This F1 tornado ran 0.4 miles across Oxford County on June 17, 2001, touching down at 10:00 AM EDT and reaching 500 yards wide. It killed nobody.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  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.

The record

Rating
F1
Date
June 17, 2001
Touchdown
10:00 AM EDT (14:00 UTC)
Path length
0.4 miles (0.6 km)
Path width
500 yards (457 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Oxford County
Touchdown point
44.480, -70.780
Lift-off point
44.480, -70.780
Record number
273

What the Weather Service recorded

A weak tornado touched down briefly in the town of Newry shortly after 10 am. Damage was confined to a wooded area where three sections of trees were blown down in a counter-clockwise, circular pattern. Each section was about a about a quarter to a half mile in length. An estimated 200 trees were downed by the tornado. Total width of the damage area was about 1500 ft. Maximum winds were estimated at 80 to 90 mph. Ironically, the tornado struck the same property that was struck by a tornado on July 18 of the previous year.

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

The warnings

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 forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 13:14 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

The air that afternoon

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.

Gray, ME (KGYX), 12:00Z

2.0 hours before the tornado, 78 km from the path. June 17, 2001.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Gray, ME at 12:00Z on 2001-06-17Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 386 joules per kilogram, CIN -51, lifted condensation level 800 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Gray, ME at 12:00Z on 2001-06-17The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 55 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 30 knots.1939Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
386 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-51 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
800 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
30 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
16 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
55 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
90 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.3
0-3 km lapse rate
3.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Gray, ME (KGYX), 00:00Z

10.0 hours after it, 78 km from the path. June 18, 2001.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Gray, ME at 00:00Z on 2001-06-18Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 110 joules per kilogram, CIN -65, lifted condensation level 786 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Gray, ME at 00:00Z on 2001-06-18The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 18 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 37 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
110 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-65 J/kg
Surface CAPE
75 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
786 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
37 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
14 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
18 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
11 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Berlin Municipal (BML), 33 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
12:15 UTC69.866.20° 0 kt1014.9RA BR
12:22 UTC6866.2200° 5 kt1015.2RA BR
12:34 UTC69.86810° 4 kt1014.9-RA BR
12:41 UTC69.866.20° 0 kt1014.9-RA BR
12:52 UTC6967360° 3 kt1014.9
13:28 UTC6866.2 4 kt1014.9RA BR
13:37 UTC66.264.4 4 kt1015.2+RA BR
13:42 UTC66.264.4 3 kt1014.9+RA FG
13:52 UTC6765320° 5 kt1014.9-RA BR
13:55 UTC66.264.4310° 5 kt1015.2-RA BR
14:07 UTC66.264.4190° 4 kt1015.9RA BR
14:13 UTC66.264.4 3 kt1015.9+RA BR
14:20 UTC66.264.4 3 kt1015.6RA BR
14:52 UTC6664 4 kt1015.6
15:10 UTC64.462.6300° 5 kt1015.9
15:52 UTC6663 3 kt1015.9

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

The radar

The Portland,ME radar (KGYX), 78 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 14:02 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.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2001 tornado in MaineEvery tornado in Maine since 1950Warnings in force in Maine nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of June 17, 2001

1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
June 1711:41 AM EDTF1Worcester, MA0.8600$30,000

What this means

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.

Sources

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