BREAKING: Likely Brief Tornado North Of Plattsburgh, NY This Afternoon In Otherwise Benign Line Of Storms

WCAX-TV meteorologist Jess Langlois shared this
radar image of today's storm in Beekmantown, 
New York. The bright shades of green and red
centered around Beekmantown shows strong winds
blowing in opposite directions in close proximity.
That is a sign of a tornado. 

A line of showers and thunderstorms - as expected - moved out of New York state into the Champlain Valley of Vermont  mid and late afternoon today. 

None of the storms appeared to be all that strong, and there were no warnings of severe thunderstorms.

Except:

It appears one of the storms along the line briefly got strong and started spinning.  It also appears to have touched off a brief tornado around Beekmantown, New York, about six miles north of Plattsburgh.  

According to WPTZ-TV meteorologist Tyler Jankowski,  noticeable rotation popped up around 3:38 pm along Route 22 near O'Neil Road and Duquette Road in Beekmantown.  Radar showed what is known as a couplet, which is winds blowing in opposite directions of each other in close proximity to each other. 

Meteorologist Jess Langlois of WCAX-TV also showed radar images, clearly showing a "couplet" on radar at that time 

That's a sign of a possible tornado. Radar also briefly indicate debris in the air. WPTZ also showed a video taken by Suzanne Drollette of what appears to be a weak tornado spinning behind some trees in Beekmantown, 

Video from WPTZ showed large sections of a roof blown off of what appears to be a house. Several trees and branches were blown down. 

The circulation seen on radar quickly dissipated and the storm continued on across Lake Champlain into Franklin County, Vermont. Once past Beekmantown, the storm looked like nothing special on radar. No obvious need for any severe storm warnings or alerts. 

That storm from Beekmantown eventually passed directly over my house in St. Albans, Vermont at around 4:45 p.m.. All I had was a couple flashes of lightning, some rumbles of thunder, a relatively brief downpour and a top wind gust at maybe 25 mph.  I didn't see any unusual looking clouds. Just a garden variety thundershower. 

The line of showers and thunderstorms continued into central Vermont by 6 p.m. No severe weather was associated with it, and it doesn't look like there will be any.

National Weather Service meteorologists from South Burlington were in Beekmantown as of 5:30 p.m. today to determine whether the damage they find there was indeed caused by a tornado.   Those meteorologist plan to release the results of their survey later tonight or tomorrow morning, 

By the way, this is not one of those cases in which a lack of staffing because of NOAA cutbacks caused National Weather Service meteorologists to miss it as it developed. It spun up so fast, and dissipated just as fast. If you blinked, you missed it. 

Also, the atmosphere did not appear to be primed to produce a tornado.  At worst, it seemed we were at risk of an isolated case or two of gusty straight line winds.