EF1 tornado, Norway Center to Hartford, Maine, August 21, 2009

1. EF065 to 85 mph

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

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

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

3. EF2111 to 135 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. EF3136 to 165 mph

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

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

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

6. EF5over 200 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

EF1

Date

August 21, 2009

Touchdown

4:22 PM EDT (20:22 UTC)

Lifted

5:01 PM EDT (21:01 UTC)

On the ground

39 minutes

Path length

16.4 miles (26.4 km)

Path width

700 yards (640 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Oxford County

Touchdown point

44.236, -70.596

Lift-off point

44.365, -70.317

Record number

0908211422-01

A squall line developed in warm sector characterized by moderate low-level shear and low LCLs. Wind damage was the most common form of severe weather, however a few cells showed extremely high cores and low-level rotation producing large hail and numerous reports of heavy rain. There were also several reports of funnel clouds and 1 confirmed tornado.

A tornado touched down on the west side of Norway Lake in Norway and moved east-northeast for more than 16 miles through the towns of Paris, Buckfield and Sumner before dissipating in the town of Hartford. The tornado produced an intermittent path of damage along it's route. Thousands of trees were snapped or uprooted by the tornado. In addition...numerous buildings were damaged or destroyed by the |tornado's winds or by falling trees. Also...many wires and utility poles were brought down by the falling trees.||The tornado was rated as EF-1 on the Enhanced Fugita Scale with maximum winds estimated between 100 and 110 mph and an estimated maximum damage path width of 700 yards (0.4 miles).||Tornado damage was observed near or across the following roads:||In Norway...Mallard Way, Dove Way, Crockett Ridge Road, Pleasant Road, Ralph Richardson Road.||In Paris...Durgin Road, Elm Hill Road, Military Road, High Street, Route 26 (Park Street), Utility Road, Paris Hill Road, Ryerson Road, and Dean Road.||In Buckfield...Allen School Road, Darnit Road, and River Road.||In Sumner...Bonney Road.||In Hartford...Rt 140 (Sumner Road), Carey Hill Road, Gurney Hill Road, Bear Pond Road (Rt 219).

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

11 minutes of warning. NWS GYX issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:11 UTC, 11 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 20:45 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 19:42 UTC and running to 20:26 UTC.

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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 22:09 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 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.

Auburn-Lewiston (LEW), 31 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Portland,ME radar (KGYX), 48 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:20 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.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2009 tornado in MaineEvery tornado in Maine since 1950Warnings in force in Maine nowThe forecast where you are

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.