Vermont Surrounded By, But So Far Untouched By Tornadoes This Year (But We've Had Spinny Things)

It's been a busy year for tornadoes in the Northeast so far, but Vermont has been spared any of them. 

Strong winds and torrential rain from a thunderstorm
in Hinesburg, Vermont on June 23 that carried a tornado
warning. No known twisters touched down that day. 

We've had some close misses, but no twisters have been confirmed in the Green Mountain State this year. 

The latest close misses came on Tuesday. 

TUESDAY TWISTERS

The National Weather Service office in Gray, Maine confirmed that a tornado touched down in Lyme, New Hampshire Tuesday. Lyme is just across the Connecticut River from Thetford, Vermont. 

The NWS office will release more details on that tornado later today, but did say it was a high end EF-1 with top winds of 110 mph with a path length of 1.8 miles long. 

Video from WPTZ showed the tornado's rapidly rotating wall cloud engulfing a mountain in Lyme. 

Meanwhile, the National Weather Service office in Albany, New York, has so far confirmed three tornadoes Tuesday in New York, not that far from the Vermont border.

A brief EF-1 touched down in Oxbow Lake, New York, with winds of 100 mph. Another, even more brief EF-0 tornado with winds of 85 mph touched the ground a little northwest of Warrensburg, New York.

A slightly larger EF-1 tornado with top winds of 100 mph and a path length of about a mile hit Wells, New  York. 

These tornadoes hit a little to the west of Lake George. The same parent thunderstorm that spawned these three twisters also launched another much larger tornado further to the west onto Rome, New York.

The Rome tornado was an EF-2 with winds of 135 mph and a 5.25 mile long path, says the National Weather Service office in Binghamton, New York.  That office will investigated two additional areas of severe storm damage in the region. At least one of those storms, this one in Canastota, New York, killed one person, and the damage is consisted with what you'd expect in a tornado.

We expect confirmation one way or another later today. 

That tornadic storm in New York eventually ended up in southwestern Vermont.  The NWS office in Albany investigated a concentrated areas of snapped off and uprooted trees along Route 30 in Rupert, Vermont. That damage was caused by a microburst carrying 95 mph winds, and not a tornado, meteorologists concluded. 

OTHER VERMONT SPINNY THINGS

Vermont has had other close calls with tornadoes this year.

Last week, at the start of our severe flash flooding on July 10, thunderstorms with tornado warnings blossomed in New York, west of Addison County, Vermont.

Those storms entered Addison County, carrying severe thunderstorm but not tornado warnings. A funnel cloud was spotted in Bridport, and damage was reported in the town. The National Weather Service office in South Burlington investigated.

The funnel must not have touched down, as no damage was found where it was located. The tree damage near Pratt's Store in Bridport was three or four miles from the funnel position, so it had to be straight line winds that caused the problem. 

I was downstream from that storm in New Haven, Vermont, and I spotted some suspicious, apparently rotating clouds, but those clouds clearly showed no signs of touching down as a tornado. The same storm moved on to neighboring Monkton, where videographers spotted a wall cloud, which is often a precursor to a tornado. But again, nothing touched down. 

Monkton seems to be Vermont's version of tornado alley this year, though no actual tornadoes touched down there. However, on June 23, two separate storms, each rotating and having tornado warnings associated with them, passed near Monkton.  A funnel cloud was photographed near Monkton, but nothing touched down. 

A tornado did touch down in Dublin, New Hampshire, a little east of Keene that day. 

Finally, on June 9, I spotted a cold air funnel over St. Albans, Vermont. This type of funnel is really not tornadic, and almost never touch down. They are a function of garden variety storms interacting with cold air aloft.   They are almost always no biggies, but fun to watch.

It is of course, possible a tornado or even a couple might have hit somewhere in Vermont this summer. Tornadoes in this neck of the woods are often incredibly brief and cause little damage. Perhaps there was one in the deep woods somewhere far from anybody's house, so it went unnoticed. 

 Or maybe somebody did notice some fallen trees, but thought it was caused by a typical summer windstorm. The National Weather Service doesn't do random investigations looking for damage. If storm damage is reported to them, they'll often investigate to determine whether it was a microburst, straight line winds or a tornado. They'll also assess how strong the winds were and how big an areas those winds covered.

Those investigations both satisfy our curiosity and help meteorologists make better forecasts in the future. They can observe the conditions that led to the damage, and that can help improve forecasts going forward. 

No severe weather, or any kind of majorly inclement weather is in the forecast through at least Monday, so we're good to go with no spinny thing threats for the foreseeable future.