EF0 tornado, Great River to (Isp)Mc Arthur Fld I, New York, August 10, 2012

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 10, 2012

Touchdown

2:06 PM EDT (18:06 UTC)

Lifted

2:14 PM EDT (18:14 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

5.6 miles (9.0 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Suffolk County

Touchdown point

40.720, -73.160

Lift-off point

40.795, -73.123

Record number

1208101206-01

A passing warm front and upper level short wave triggered severe thunderstorms over Long Island, including one that produced a tornado in South Central Suffolk County.

The National Weather Service conducted a storm survey in south central Suffolk County, New York. Based on this survey, the tornado touched down on Widgeon Court in Great River, and tracked north-northeast to where it lifted near the intersection of Ocean Avenue and Gary Way Road in Ronkonkoma.||The track went through Oakdale, Connequot River State Park, Bohemia County Park, and Bohemia in between touch down and lifting. The most significant damage occurred between 8th Street and Feuereisen Avenue in Bohemia around 2:11 PM EDT. Multiple trees were uprooted and thrown onto power lines. Several homes were damaged due to fallen trees in Oakdale and Bohemia. There were several eyewitness reports of the tornado moving north-northeast near the east bank of the Connequot River and in Bohemia as well.

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

10 minutes of warning. NWS OKX issued a tornado warning for this county at 17:56 UTC, 10 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 18:15 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, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 18:22 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), 26 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:05 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 2012 tornado in New YorkEvery tornado in New York since 1950Warnings in force in New York 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.