Actually, That Middlebury, Tornado WAS The FIrst March Vermont Tornado On Record

Contrary to databases, this weather map and newspaper 
article unearthed by meteorologist Peter Banacos shows
there could not have been a tornado in Bennington
County, Vermont on March 22, 1955. This means
that the tornado in Middlebury, Vermont last month
was the first confirmed tornado in Vermont on record
during the month of March

 Many of you surely remember that EF-1 tornado in Middlebury, Vermont about a week ago that injured two people and seriously damaged a house.  

At the time, we all said it was only the second March tornado on record in Vermont.  Databases showed another tornado near Shaftsbury, Vermont on March 22, 1955.

Frankly, I was suspicious.  I wondered if there was really a tornado in Shaftsbury in Bennington County back in 1955.  I looked at some sparse weather records from that date and those doubts grew. 

Clearly, there was a storm system affecting Vermont and adjacent New York on March 22, 1955.  

I looked at something called NOW data on National Weather Service pages.  I couldn't find data from very close to Shaftsbury, but the general weather conditions that day regional did not suggest tornadoes.

One ingredient necessary for tornadoes is relatively warm, humid air. It doesn't have to be super warm, but certainly way, way above freezing. In Middlebury just before the tornado, the temperatures was near 70 degrees and dew points were above 50.  That's sufficient for tornadoes, assuming all the other weather ingredients come together correctly, as they did there.

Data from Rutland, Vermont and Glens Falls, New York from March 22, 1955 suggest a raw, stormy day. Temperatures were in the 30s, and melted precipitation from the storm ranged from near a half inch in Rutland to an inch in Glens Falls. Rutland also reported a couple inches of snow, and Glens Falls had 2.4 inches. I bet it was one of those awful schmutzy kind of March days. 

It clear wasn't tornado weather that day in March, 1955.  But something must have happened in Shaftsbury to suggest a tornado.

Meteorologist Peter Banacos solved the mystery.  He found a weather map from that storm in March, 1955, and an article from the Bennington Banner describing a nasty wind storm. 

The weather map from 7 a.m. March 22, 1955 showed a strong storm system centered over the southern Great Lakes. The storm's warm front - really a stationary front in this case - was draped from western Pennsylvania to eastern Virginia.

That placed Vermont on a colder sector of the storm. Which is why temperatures were only in the 30s that day.  Not an environment for tornadoes. The weather map suggest there might have been tornadoes in the southeastern U.S. on that blustery March day in 1955.  But no twisters anywhere close to the Northeast. 

But the relatively intense storm and its fronts were perfectly positioned to create a downslope windstorm on the western slopes of the Green Mountains. Winds from the southeast went up and over the Green Mountains, then gained momentum as they swept downhill into Bennington County

The Bennington Banner article Banacos uncovered described a 35-hour period of mixed precipitation and winds gusting to 60 mph causing widespread damage to power lines, trees, and even some buildings. 

I should have been a forensic meteorologist, I tell ya. I love solving mysteries like this. 

The bottom line: The Middlebury tornado on March 26, 2021 is the first confirmed March tornado on record for Vermont.