EF1 tornado, Halcott Center, New York, August 27, 2020

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

August 27, 2020

Touchdown

2:11 PM EDT (18:11 UTC)

Path length

0.3 miles (0.4 km)

Path width

25 yards (23 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Greene County

Touchdown point

42.216, -74.515

Lift-off point

42.216, -74.515

Record number

2008271211-01

Severe thunderstorms developed along a warm front during the afternoon of the 27th. Two of these storms became quite intense as they tracked from the northern Catskills through the Mid-Hudson Valley and into the Taconics. These storms spawned a brief tornado in a forested area in Greene County, and produced more widespread wind damage in the Amenia, Dover Plains, and Millbrook regions of Dutchess County with numerous downed trees. One fatality occurred in East Fishkill as a tree was downed onto a moving vehicle. More than 4,000 people in Dutchess County and 2,000 people in Ulster County lost power as a result of the storms. The storms also produced a couple of reports of hail up to half dollar size.

The National Weather Service confirmed a brief tornado from an eyewitness report of about 15 trees with their tops torn off in a forested area on a hilltop at about 2400 feet elevation. This report aligned with strong rotation evident on Doppler radar imagery. The maximum estimated winds were 90 miles per hour.

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

6 minutes of warning. NWS ALY issued a tornado warning for this county at 18:05 UTC, 6 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 18:37 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:23 UTC and running to 20:05 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:24 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 Albany radar (KENX), 55 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:09 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 2020 tornado in New YorkEvery tornado in New York since 1950Warnings in force in New York nowThe forecast where you are

14 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.