EF1 tornado, Sheldrake, New York, June 21, 2007

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

June 21, 2007

Touchdown

3:46 PM EDT (19:46 UTC)

Lifted

3:55 PM EDT (19:55 UTC)

On the ground

9 minutes

Path length

1.5 miles (2.4 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$10,000

County

Seneca County

Touchdown point

42.670, -76.680

Lift-off point

42.670, -76.680

Record number

0706211346-01

Showers and thunderstorms developed ahead of a strong cold front as it approached central New York and Northeast Pennsylvania. Widespread severe thunderstorms developed, with many reports of large hail and damaging winds. One thunderstorm produced a brief tornado in the eastern Finger Lakes region.

A National Weather Service storm survey team found a swath of wind damage in southeastern Seneca County, within the Sheldrake area of the town of Ovid. The pattern of damage was consistent with that of an EF-1 tornado on the Enhanced Fujita Scale. The degree of damage, which consisted mainly of snapped off and uprooted trees, indicated that maximum wind speeds were around 90 mph. ||The tornado touched down in Sheldrake, near the northern end of Wyers Point Road, just east of State Route 89 and near the western shore of Cayuga Lake at about 3:46 pm EDT. The tornado then tracked southeast for about 1.5 miles, nearly parallel to both Wyers Point Road and the Cayuga Lake shoreline. The observed damage had a width of up to about 100 yards. Numerous trees sustained damage along this path length. Several very large trees were uprooted, and many more were snapped off. Utility poles in this same vicinity were either knocked down or sheared off. The orientation of the tree damage suggested a pattern of cyclonic rotation. Eyewitness accounts also detail both violently rotating debris just above ground level, and visual sighting of a funnel down to the surface near the shoreline. Any observed structural damage was relatively minor. A metal road sign was uprooted and blown across County Route 139, and a garage just off Wyers Point Road sustained roof damage from fallen trees. The tornado eventually crossed County Route 139 before emerging over the waters of Cayuga Lake between 3:50 and 3:55 pm EDT. ||At that point, evidence suggests that the tornado lifted back toward the cloud base over the open waters of Cayuga Lake. One eyewitness account from the King's Ferry Fire Station, which was about 2 miles east of the storm at this time, sighted a funnel cloud over Cayuga Lake, with the funnel observed to be well above the surface of the water.

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

11 minutes of warning. NWS BGM issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:35 UTC, 11 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 20:00 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 18:50 UTC and running to 02:00 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. The outlook in force was issued at 16:16 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 Binghamton radar (KBGM), 77 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:44 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 2007 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.