F0 tornado, Bellingham, Massachusetts, June 30, 2001

1. F040 to 72 mphthis tornado

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

2. F173 to 112 mph

   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

F0

Date

June 30, 2001

Touchdown

7:25 PM EDT (23:25 UTC)

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

80 yards (73 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Norfolk County

Touchdown point

42.080, -71.470

Lift-off point

42.080, -71.470

Record number

190

The most widespread severe weather event of the season struck most of the Bay State, with countless reports of downed trees, branches, and large hail from the east slopes of the Berkshires into metro Boston and the North Shore.The storms began in Franklin, Hampshire, and Hampden Counties around mid afternoon, and downed trees in Turners Falls, Worthington, and Chester. Dime to nickel sized hail was also reported. Severe weather reports became more numerous by late afternoon as the storms reached central and northeast Massachusetts. There many reports of large trees down from Littleton, Wilmington, Southborough, Shrewsbury and Sterling, where a spotter recorded a gust to 62 mph. In Essex County, severe thunderstorms downed trees and dropped dime sized hail in Lynnfield, Peabody, Beverly, and Marblehead. More severe thunderstorms erupted in Worcester County during the evening, dropping quarter sized hail in Mendon. These storms tracked into southern Middlesex County near Holliston, where large limbs were downed, then reached Norfolk County where more considerable storm damage occurred. A microburst downed many large trees and wires in Bellingham, Millis, and Medway. A survey of the debris and an eyewitness account also confirmed that a small F0 tornado touched down in Bellingham around 725 pm EDT. The tornado was estimated to have a path length of 150 yards and a width of 80 yards. Wind speeds were estimated near 70 mph. There were no injuries. Spotters reported hail as large as a half dollar prior to the wind damage. As the storms progressed across Norfolk County, trees and power lines were downed in Sharon, Walpole, and Norwood. Another severe thunderstorm later in the evening downed trees onto a road in Walpole and another on a house.The storms also contained frequent cloud-to-ground lightning. Tens of thousands were left without power. In Auburn, lightning caused two house fires when a nearby transformer was struck. In Whitman, a house fire started by a lightning strike on the second floor. Police and fire communications were temporarily disrupted when lightning struck an antenna in Norwood.

Brief F0 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 20:07 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.

The Boston radar (KBOX), 31 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:25 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

2 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.