EF1 tornado, Rockaway Beach to Brooklyn, New York, September 8, 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

September 8, 2012

Touchdown

10:58 AM EDT (14:58 UTC)

Lifted

11:05 AM EDT (15:05 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

4.7 miles (7.6 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$270,000

Counties

Kings and Queens counties

Touchdown point

40.547, -73.933

Lift-off point

40.634, -73.894

Record number

1209080858-01

A combination of a pre-frontal trough and a passing upper level disturbance produced an isolated severe storm in the morning, yielding a tornado in Queens and Brooklyn. An approaching cold front yielded another line of severe storms in the afternoon across the Lower Hudson Valley and New York City.

This is the second of four segments of a combined waterspout tornado event. The tornado originated as a waterspout approximately 1 mile south of the tip of Breezy Point at 10:56 am in ANZ-355, and crossed onto land, as a tornado approximately 2500 feet northeast of the tip of Breezy Point, Queens at 10:58 am. The tornado caused structural damage to the Breezy Point Surf Club near where the waterspout came onshore as a tornado. Damage was also reported near its exit point off Breezy Point, with multiple trees and power lines reported down near the Beach 216th Street, at 10:59 am. At this point the tornado exited as a waterspout into the eastern arm of Lower New York Harbor, ANZ-338, about 12,500 feet west of Rockaway Inlet. The waterspout then continued northeast until making landfall as a tornado in Kings County/Brooklyn to the southeast of Plumb Beach about 750 feet south of the Belt Parkway at 11:01 am. The tornado then continued moving northeast into Brooklyn where it produced EF1 damage in Canarsie, Brooklyn before lifting at 11:05 am.

This is the fourth segment of a combined waterspout/tornado that originated as a waterspout about 1 mile south of the tip of Breezy Point in ANZ-355 (Coastal Waters From Sandy Hook NJ to Fire Island Inlet NY out to 20 Nautical Miles) at 10:56 am. The waterspout then reached land and crossed Breezy Point Queens as an EF0 tornado from 10:58 to 10:59 am. The tornado then went back over water, traversing the Eastern Arm of Lower New York Harbor (ANZ-338), to the west of Rockaway Inlet, from 10:59-11:00 am as a waterspout. At 11:01 am, the waterspout made landfall as a tornado to the southeast of Plumb Beach, about 750 feet south of the Belt Parkway. The tornado traversed northeast across Marine Park, based on video evidence, then through the Mill Basin Section of Kings County/Brooklyn where it brought down a tree and limbs along Whitman Drive around 11:02 am. The tornado continued heading northeast into Bergen Beach where it downed a tree and several limbs between the corner of East 70th Street and Avenue Y and the corner of Royce Street and Avenue W around 11:03 am. The tornado then crossed the Canarsie section of Kings County/Brooklyn from 11:04 to 11:05 am before lifting near the corner of East 94th Street and Avenue N. In Canarsie, the tornado caused structural damage to several homes and to several trees in and around Canarsie Park.

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

24 minutes of warning. NWS OKX issued a tornado warning for this county at 14:34 UTC, 24 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 15:00 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 12:48 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.

New York/Jf Kennedy (JFK), 14 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Philadelphia radar (KDIX), 83 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 14:57 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.