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Western New York Tornado Outbreak?
Having chased thunderstorms since 1996 I have been out to the American Midwest many times always in search of the elusive tornado. It is no secret that your chances of finding one there are better than anywhere in the world! Being that I live here in Western, NY I cannot be in Kansas in a moments notice. However, we certainly are not immune to severe weather let alone tornadoes and even waterspouts in this area on the Great Lakes. Saturday July 25th was a severe weather day not unlike a typical day in tornado alley. The SPC (Storm Prediction Center) had already posted a 5% tornado risk very early in the day for our area and it was not long before a severe thunderstorm watch was issued. Some storms were already on their way to our area from Ohio and were getting stronger as they made their way up Lake Erie from the southwest. These were linier in shape or line like and did not really look tornadic. As the rear of one of these storms started to near Buffalo around 4:00pm it had intensified and started to clearly show rotation on SRV (Storm Relative Velocity). By now I was on my way out the door. I started southwest to try and intercept this area in the storm. Soon a tornado warning was issued for the Sloan to Swormville areas which are both slightly east of Buffalo. This warning was later dropped. As I neared Lockport, NY I had already observed a thin funnel as well as a pretty tornadic looking wall cloud. When I reached the Alabama, NY swamp area I could clearly see a cylinder shaped wall cloud to the rear or west of what I would consider a classic supercell thunderstorm at this time. A large cone then formed. Being a SKYWARN ® spotter got on the phone with the Buffalo National Weather Service at 4:56pm and reported my sighting. A warning went up for the area and by now this tornado had clearly touched down. I followed the rotational area of this storm all the way up to Hilton, NY where another tornado formed but I could not see it. I was caught up in the area of circulation, rain and hail while driving through Hilton (see video) and only caught a very short glimpse of the wall cloud and probably just missed the tornado. Finally this storm made its way out onto Lake Ontario where it drifted away to the northeast. This storm was able to hang on to a mesocyclone or rotating area for its entire trip across western New York although it repositioned itself at least three times. It was not until then that I received a call from Rich Schimpff that I knew that Corfu had taken a direct hit! Fortunately nobody was killed or hurt and there was only structure and tree damage. Rich was kind enough to get some shots of the damage. The Corfu tornado was rated EF1 and the Hilton tornado was rated EF0 on the Enhanced Fujita scale by the NWS. The next day two more tornadoes touched down in extreme southwestern, NY which made the weekend count of four confirmed tornadoes. This is the first time I have had to call my relatives and tell them to go in the basement! Jack Kertzie |