EF1 tornado, Spencer Settlement to Stanwix Hgts, New York, July 23, 2012

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

July 23, 2012

Touchdown

12:02 AM EDT (04:02 UTC)

Lifted

12:04 AM EDT (04:04 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

2.0 miles (3.3 km)

Path width

120 yards (110 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Oneida County

Touchdown point

43.190, -75.480

Lift-off point

43.170, -75.450

Record number

1207232202-01

During the afternoon of July 23rd, an upper level disturbance moved east toward central New York from southern Ontario, Canada. Daytime heating and instability combined with favorable wind parameters in the atmosphere to produce severe thunderstorms. Many reports were received of wind damage and very large hail.

A small tornado developed along a line of thunderstorms across central Oneida county. The tornado appeared to form in the city of Rome, just north of Lamphear Road, and just south of both State Route 26 and State Route 365. Initially, two telephone poles were downed, along with several trees. ||As the tornado progressed towards the east-southeast, it damaged portions of a cornfield, before encountering a newly built home. The strong winds pushed the house off it's foundation. Additionally, an attached garage on the east side of the residence sustained heavy damage, with the back wall and east facing wall collapsing, causing the garage to cave in. Garage debris was blown as far as about 200 yards away. Debris was strewn across the back yard of the residence, onto State Route 365, and into the back yard of a neighboring residence to the east. The damage continued to be observed at a neighboring residence just to the east-southeast, south of Lamphear Road.

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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:58 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 Ft Drum radar (KTYX), 66 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:03 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

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.