F1 tornado, Glen Cove, New York, August 12, 2005

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

August 12, 2005

Touchdown

9:45 PM EDT (01:45 UTC)

Path length

0.2 miles (0.3 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$140,000

County

Nassau County

Touchdown point

40.870, -73.630

Lift-off point

40.870, -73.630

Record number

339

A line of thunderstorms developed over the Lower Hudson Valley of NY on the evening of the 12th. As these thunderstorms progressed to the southeast, they produced wind damage. A brief tornado also touched down in Nassau County.

A weak and short-lived F1 tornado touched down around 945 pm EDT in Glen Cove. The tornado formed in a thunderstorm that formed on an outflow boundary produced by a line of thunderstorms over Long Island Sound. The tornado moved from northwest to southeast and was estimated to be on the ground for only a minute or two. However, it caused considerable damage to many of the large trees in the area. Many large trees in the neighborhood to the south of the Welwyn Preserve came down and did considerable damage to homes and property. Damage was reported as far southeast as North Shore University Hospital. There were no known injuries.

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 00:46 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 Brookhaven radar (KOKX), 64 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:46 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 2005 tornado in New YorkEvery tornado in New York since 1950Warnings in force in New York nowThe forecast where you are

7 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.