EF1 tornado, Etna to Dryden, New York, June 21, 2021

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, 2021

Touchdown

5:38 PM EDT (21:38 UTC)

Lifted

5:49 PM EDT (21:49 UTC)

On the ground

11 minutes

Path length

2.8 miles (4.5 km)

Path width

85 yards (78 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$49,000

County

Tompkins County

Touchdown point

42.460, -76.340

Lift-off point

42.470, -76.290

Record number

2106211538-01

3 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BGM, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 88 mph.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

A cold front collided with warm and humid conditions, which then triggered scattered thunderstorms during the afternoon across Central New York. One storm produced a weak, short-lived tornado. This tornado knocked down several trees. It also went through the yard of a residence, knocking a small shed off of its foundation as well as damaging a portion of their fence.

A tornado touched down in Yellow Barn State Forest, east of Yellow Barn Road. It continued to travel eastward and passed over Card Road. It then struck a farm on Irish Settlement Road, snapping and uprooting multiple trees. Then it continued eastward and crossed through a wooded section of Beam Hill Road. The tornado then struck the yard of a house on the west side of Route 38, causing significant tree damage to the yard, a shed to blow off its foundation, and a blow-down of a fence. The tornado then crossed Route 38 just south of Dryden, before lifting just east of the 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.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 17:13 UTC and running to 22:48 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 19:54 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), 40 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:35 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 2021 tornado in New YorkEvery tornado in New York since 1950Warnings in force in New York nowThe forecast where you are

3 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.