F1 tornado, Princeton, Massachusetts, June 17, 2001

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

June 17, 2001

Touchdown

11:41 AM EDT (15:41 UTC)

Path length

0.8 miles (1.3 km)

Path width

600 yards (549 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$30,000

County

Worcester County

Touchdown point

42.450, -71.870

Lift-off point

42.450, -71.870

Record number

188

An isolated severe thunderstorm, associated with the remnants of Tropical Storm Allison, moved across northern Worcester and northwest Middlesex Counties. A ground and aerial survey later revealed that a tornado moved through Princeton, and two microbursts occurred in Leominster and Shirley.The tornado occurred between 1141 am and 1143 am in the Coalkiln Road area, in the southeast portion of the town of Princeton. It was rated as an F1 tornado, with winds between 73 and 112 mph. The path length was three-quarters of a mile and the width was as much as 1700 feet. A hundred or more trees were either uprooted or snapped off. A small camper was severely damaged after being lifted up and dropped on a fallen tree. Another tree fell on a house. No injuries occurred. Eyewitnesses, including a trained Skywarn spotter, observed hail as large as ping pong balls just before the tornado struck. There were no visual sightings of a funnel cloud or tornado, which was likely obscured by heavy rain. This was the first tornado to strike Worcester County since August 10, 1990.A microburst occurred in the eastern portion of Leominster near Johnny Appleseed Lane, just west of Interstate 190. Damage was seen in an area roughly one-half by one-third of a mile, as evidenced by the pattern of fallen and uprooted trees. Another microburst occurred in Shirley, near the east shore of Lake Shirley to Center Road and Parker Road. A truck was damaged by a fallen tree, while other trees fell on a car and a mobile home. Two chimneys were also toppled. Torrential rainfall caused street and poor drainage flooding throughout central and eastern Massachusetts, and snarled traffic on Father's Day. Storm totals of 3 to 5 inches were common throughout most of the region. Lightning struck two homes in Middlesex County and caused significant damage. One in Marlborough hit a nearby tree, and traveled into the house through a stone wall, destroying the bathroom. In Reading, lightning struck a 212-year old colonial home at Grove and Forest Streets, setting the roof on fire and causing severe damage.

Brief F1 touchdown

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 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 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.

Fitchburg (FIT), 15 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Boston radar (KBOX), 82 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 15:42 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 2001 tornado in MassachusettsEvery tornado in Massachusetts since 1950Warnings in force in Massachusetts 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.