EF0 tornado, Bird to Farmersville, New York, April 15, 2026

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, as surveyed

EF0, preliminary

Date

April 15, 2026

Touchdown

8:13 PM EDT (00:13 UTC)

Lifted

8:14 PM EDT (00:14 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.2 miles (0.3 km)

Path width

55 yards (50 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Cattaraugus County

Touchdown point

42.391, -78.513

Lift-off point

42.391, -78.510

Highest wind the damage implies

75 mph

Surveyed by

NWS BUF

Survey last edited

April 18, 2026

Record number

None yet. SPC numbers 2026 in the spring of 2027.

17 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BUF, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 83 mph.

• Many uprooted trees revealed by drove overflight

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

On the evening of April 15th, a line of thunderstorms tracking east over Lake Erie intensified as they tracked onshore into northwestern Pennsylvania, Chautauqua County and Southern Erie County. As the storms continued east they became severe, causing two tornadoes in Cattaraugus County along with damaging wind gusts across a large chunk of the Western Southern Tier. The thunderstorms were associated with a Mesoscale Convective Vortex, that per usual for these types of setups, had plenty of shear to support the development of a tornado or two. Due to the lower instability values along with showers and increased cloud cover ahead of and behind the primary line, additional thunderstorms weren't able to develop.

The National Weather Service in Buffalo investigated storm-related damage from a rotating thunderstorm within a line of storms that affected the area southeast of Machias in Cattaraugus County on April 15th. The National Weather Service storm survey team investigated the damage in the area and confirmed damage consistent with an EF-0 tornado with estimated peak winds of 75 mph.||Several trees uprooted in multiple directions shortly after the intersection of Tug Hill Road and Gulf Hill Road. Primary residence had a window blown in the upper most story of the house, with a secondary residence loosing a few roof shingles.

NWS storm survey confirmed 80mph EF-0 tornado damage in the Town of Farmersville with a path length of 0.23 mi and width of 75 yds. ||The National Weather Service in Buffalo received a report on Friday evening of storm damage to seasonal properties in the Town of Farmersville in Cattaraugus County that was suspected to be from a tornado. Upon surveying the damage, the NWS storm survey team was able to confirm EF-0 tornado damage over a path length of just below a quarter of a mile with a maximum estimated wind speed of 80 mph.

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

3 minutes of warning. NWS BUF issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:10 UTC, 3 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:26 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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:55 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 Buffalo radar (KBUF), 65 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:16 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 2026 tornado in New YorkEvery tornado in New York since 1950Warnings in force in New York nowThe forecast where you are

6 more have been surveyed in the United States that day, so far.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. A survey can be revised, so the rating, the path and the casualties can all still change.

NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit, the record the survey teams file from the damage, and NOAA Storm Prediction Center storm reports. Neither is the official database for 2026, which SPC publishes in the spring of 2027.