EF0 tornado, East Bolton, Massachusetts, August 23, 2021

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

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

2. EF186 to 110 mph

   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

EF0

Date

August 23, 2021

Touchdown

12:30 PM EDT (16:30 UTC)

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$2,000

County

Worcester County

Touchdown point

42.438, -71.565

Lift-off point

42.438, -71.565

Record number

2108231030-01

Tropical Storm Henri made landfall in southwest Rhode Island around noon on August 22nd, then moved slowly northwestward and westward across northern Connecticut and weakened. Henri brought strong wind gusts and flash flooding. The strongest gusts -- to 70 mph -- occurred along the Rhode Island coast. The worst flash flooding occurred in northeast Connecticut.||As the remnants of Henri moved eastward across southern New England on August 23rd, it spawned three tornadoes and a waterspout in MA and also it caused some renewed flooding.||The highest rainfall totals over the two-day period ranged from 5 to 6 inches in Hartford and Tolland Counties in northern Connecticut and in Franklin, Hampshire, and Hampden Counties in western Massachusetts.

In Bolton, a small, brief tornado touched down, causing minor damage between roughly 175 and 198 Main Street. One tree was knocked down onto wires and a large branch was ripped from another tree. It is believed that a funnel cloud initially formed a short distance to the southeast of where the damage was observed, and as it moved northwest, it briefly touched down. Radar data indicated rotation associated with a shower that moved over the area to be very similar to what was observed with the Marlborough tornado a short while earlier.

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

45 minutes of warning. NWS BOX issued a tornado warning for this county at 15:45 UTC, 45 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 16:30 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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:30 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), 20 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Boston radar (KBOX), 64 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 16:27 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 2021 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.