TWO Tornadoes hit NEW YORK CITY!!

[USATVFAN]

Two Tornadoes hit New York City after Thursday storm.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...qImUgD9IA3K4G0
Authorities: 2 tornadoes struck NYC during storm
By VERENA DOBNIK and SARA KUGLER FRAZIER (AP) – 20 minutes ago
NEW YORK — The storm that churned through New York City spawned two destructive tornadoes and a fierce macroburst with wind speeds up to 125 mph that barreled across a large swath of Brooklyn and Queens, authorities said Friday.
The storm on Thursday evening toppled trees, peeled away roofs and killed a woman in a car who had just swapped seats with her husband.
The fury of wind and rain that pummeled the area was New York City's ninth and 10th tornadoes since 1950, the National Weather Service said Friday night.
Kyle Struckmann, a meteorologist with the agency, said it was amazing that only one person died.
"It's practically a miracle considering the population that was affected by this," he said.
One of the tornadoes struck Brooklyn at 5:33 p.m. Thursday, with winds up to 80 mph, and carved its way northeast from the Park Slope section, Struckmann said. The second one hit Queens at 5:42 p.m., with winds up to 100 mph, traveling 4 miles from the Flushing section to a mile north of Bayside.
It was that second twister that snapped trees and scattered them like bowling pins, downing power lines and crushing vehicles, including a car in Queens where Aline Levakis was killed, according to the National Weather Service. She was in the parked car with her husband, Billy Levakis. The couple, from Pennsylvania, had just switched seats in the car, said a former business partner, Peter Markos. Billy Levakis survived.
It was the macroburst that packed the biggest punch with its winds up to 125 mph, said Brian Ciemnecki, a National Weather Service meteorologist. Stretching 8 miles long and 5 miles wide, the macroburst started in the Middle Village section of Queens and ended in Forest Hills. A macroburst is an intense gust of wind that pours down from a storm.
"The large majority of damage was associated with the macroburst," Ciemnecki said.
Officials initially had reported that a microburst hit the city but later corrected that to say it was a macroburst, because it was more than 2 1/2-miles long.
Strong winds caused storm damage on Staten Island, authorities said.
The storm was part of a line that rippled across much of the Northeast before completing its run in New York City during the Thursday evening rush hour in a matter of minutes. It caught nearly everyone off guard, including commuters heading home and parents picking up children from after-school activities.
"There are lots of stories of people who came very close to being hit by a big tree and killed, but fortunately there was only one," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday. "And that one was really tragic."
Investigators on Friday had mapped out the width and intensity of the storm to determine whether a tornado touched down, Struckmann said. The probe included surveying the aftermath by helicopter.
Stunned residents sifted through the debris Friday, and utility crews worked to restore power in blacked-out neighborhoods. The number of customers without power peaked at 37,000, but that gradually improved Friday. About 14,000 customers, mostly in Queens, had no power late Friday.
Consolidated Edison said it expects to restore power to most customers by Saturday night, and all service by Sunday night.
On a badly hit Brooklyn block of 1890s brownstones in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, the storm swept away parts of rooftops on at least six homes.
One four-story rowhouse was so waterlogged that walls were marked Friday with large black Xs — meaning they were to be torn down. In the yard behind, debris lay piled up, including parts of the roof, a crushed gazebo and a whole tree that landed there from two houses away.
"Just look at this," said owner Babe Hatcher, standing in the backyard.
Pointing at the top floor, he said: "No one can sleep up there; there's no ceiling. You can see the sky."
Department of Buildings Commissioner Robert Limandri said the city had received more than 60 reports of buildings with possible structural damage. Officials had ordered residents out of some of the worst-hit homes in Brooklyn.
The city parks department said it was still assessing the tree damage and cautioned that cleanup would likely go on for days. The parks commissioner warned pedestrians to be careful walking under trees that might have broken branches.
All over the city, witnesses compared stories of what they had seen — street signs uprooted, storefront windows blown out, thick tree trunks snapped in half, a parked van lifted a foot into the air.
"A huge tree limb, like 25 feet long, flew right up the street, up the hill and stopped in the middle of the air 50 feet up in this intersection and started spinning," said Steve Carlisle, 54. "It was like a poltergeist."
"Then all the garbage cans went up in the air and this spinning tree hits one of them like it was a bat on a ball. The can was launched way, way over there," he said, pointing at a building about 120 feet away where a metal garbage can lay flattened.
Ruby Ellis was doing dishes when the storm wailed over her house and yanked on the roof.
"The wind was holding my ceiling up in the air. It was like a wave; it went up and fell back down," Ellis said. "After the roof went up, then all the rain came down and I had a flood."
The line of storms began its work in the west. At least seven tornadoes were confirmed in Ohio, where storms flipped mobile homes, injured several people and damaged part of an Ohio State University campus. A small tornado also touched down in southern New Jersey, knocking over trees and damaging two houses.
The last twister to hit New York City was in July, a small one that whirled through the Bronx during a thunderstorm that left thousands without power. In 2007, a tornado with winds as high as 135 mph touched down in Staten Island and Brooklyn, where it damaged homes and sucked the roof off a car dealership.
___
Associated Press Writers Cristian Salazar, Beth J. Harpaz, Ula Ilnytzky, David B. Caruso and Charles Sheehan contributed to this report.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/n...b7luMNU3jcMAAP
he storm that churned through New York City spawned two destructive tornadoes and a fierce microburst with speeds up to 125 mph that barreled across a large swath of Brooklyn and Queens, authorities said Friday.
The storm on Thursday evening toppled trees, peeled away roofs and killed a woman in a car who had just swapped seats with her husband.
The fury of wind and rain that pummeled the area was New York City's ninth and tenth tornado since 1950, the National Weather Service determined Friday night.
Kyle Struckmann, a meteorologist with the agency, said it was amazing that only one person died. "It's practically a miracle considering the population that was affected by this," he said.

CHAD RACHMAN/NEW YORK POST
Dark clouds hang over the Manhattan skyline.
Photos: Storm slams NY

He said one of the tornados struck Brooklyn about 5:33 p.m. Thursday, with winds up to 80 miles per hour; the second one hit Queens, with winds up to 100 miles per hour.
But it was the microburst, which stretched 8 miles long and 5 miles wide, that packed the biggest punch, Struckmann said. It started in the Middle Village area of Queens and ended in Forest Hills. A microburst is an intense gust of wind that pours down from a storm.
City officials said the twister hopped across New York Harbor from Staten Island and barreled uninterrupted from Park Slope in Brooklyn all the way the Bayside neighborhood in Queens.
The storm was part of a line that rippled across much of the Northeast before completing its run in New York City during the Thursday evening rush hour in a matter of minutes. It caught nearly everyone off guard, including commuters heading home and parents picking up children from after-school activities.
It snapped trees and scattered them like bowling pins, downing power lines and crushing vehicles, including a car in Queens where Iline Levakis and her husband, Billy Levakis were parked. The couple, from Pennsylvania, had just switched seats in the car, said a former business partner, Peter Markos.
She was killed; he survived.
"There are lots of stories of people who came very close to being hit by a big tree and killed, but fortunately there was only one," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday. "And that one was really tragic."
Investigators mapped out the width and intensity of the storm before determining that the tornadoes touched down, Struckmann said. The probe included surveying the aftermath by helicopter.


Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/n...#ixzz0zrA6kO28


http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/...w_york_ci.html
National Weather Service confirms that two tornados, microburst hit New York City Thursday

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Originally Published:Friday, September 17th 2010, 10:01 PM
Updated: Friday, September 17th 2010, 10:01 PM



Fevelo for News
It's confirmed that two tornados hit New York. In some areas, the storm ripped the roofs off houses Thursday afternoon.
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The storm that churned through New York City spawned two destructive tornados and a fierce microburst with speeds up to 125 mph that barreled across a large swath of Brooklyn and Queens, authorities said Friday.

The storm on Thursday evening toppled trees, peeled away roofs and killed a woman in a car who had just swapped seats with her husband.

The fury of wind and rain that pummeled the area was New York City's ninth and tenth tornado since 1950, the National Weather Service determined Friday night.

Kyle Struckmann, a meteorologist with the agency, said it was amazing that only one person died. "It's practically a miracle considering the population that was affected by this," he said.

He said one of the tornados struck Brooklyn about 5:33 p.m. Thursday, with winds up to 80 miles per hour; the second one hit Queens, with winds up to 100 miles per hour.

But it was the microburst, which stretched 8 miles long and 5 miles wide, that packed the biggest punch, Struckmann said. It started in the Middle Village area of Queens and ended in Forest Hills. A microburst is an intense gust of wind that pours down from a storm.

City officials said the twister hopped across New York Harbor from Staten Island and barreled uninterrupted from Park Slope in Brooklyn all the way the Bayside neighborhood in Queens.

The storm was part of a line that rippled across much of the Northeast before completing its run in New York City during the Thursday evening rush hour in a matter of minutes. It caught nearly everyone off guard, including commuters heading home and parents picking up children from after-school activities.

It snapped trees and scattered them like bowling pins, downing power lines and crushing vehicles, including a car in Queens where Iline Levakis and her husband, Billy Levakis were parked. The couple, from Pennsylvania, had just switched seats in the car, said a former business partner, Peter Markos.

She was killed; he survived.

"There are lots of stories of people who came very close to being hit by a big tree and killed, but fortunately there was only one," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday. "And that one was really tragic."

Investigators mapped out the width and intensity of the storm before determining that the tornados touched down, Struckmann said. The probe included surveying the aftermath by



Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/...#ixzz0zrAJnoYi

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/39238600/ns/weather/
NYC storm: 14 miles of damaged homes, downed trees
Weather Service confirms 2 tornadoes in Brooklyn, Queens
video

At least one tornado touched down in NYC
interactive

Birth of a tornado

Bebeto Matthews / AP
Building inspectors on Friday survey damage to homes in Brooklyn after Thursday night's storm.

updated 2 hours 15 minutes ago
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NEW YORK — Two tornadoes that touched down in New York City were confirmed Friday as parts of a brief but vicious storm that left a 14-mile path of destruction from Brooklyn to Queens, toppling more than 1,000 trees, damaging dozens of homes and killing a woman in a car who had just swapped seats with her husband.
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The National Weather Service late Friday confirmed one tornado touched down near Park Slope in Brooklyn and moved along the ground 75 yards wide for two miles and a second touched down in Flushing, Queens, and traveled along the ground for four miles with a 100-yard swath.
City officials said the storm hopped across New York Harbor from Staten Island and barreled uninterrupted from Park Slope in Brooklyn all the way to the Bayside neighborhood in Queens.
Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe estimated the storm destroyed more than 1,000 trees. He said forestry experts were finding damage patterns consistent with twisting winds, rather than more typical sideways winds.
"This is a very brief storm that was extremely destructive," he said.
The storm was part of a line that rippled across much of the Northeast before completing its run in New York City during the Thursday evening rush hour in a matter of minutes. It caught nearly everyone off guard, including commuters heading home and parents picking up children from after-school activities.

Daniel P. Derella / AP
Trees line 68th Drive at the intersection of Yellowstone Blvd. in the Queens borough of New York on Friday.
It snapped trees and scattered them like bowling pins, downing power lines and crushing vehicles, including a car in Queens where Aline Levakis and her husband, Billy Levakis were parked. The couple, from Pennsylvania, had just switched seats in the car, said a former business partner, Peter Markos.
She was killed; he survived.
"There are lots of stories of people who came very close to being hit by a big tree and killed, but fortunately there was only one," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday. "And that one was really tragic."
Investigators were mapping out the width and intensity of the storm to determine whether a tornado touched down, said Kyle Struckmann, a National Weather Service meteorologist. The probe included surveying the aftermath by helicopter.
37,000 lost power
Stunned residents sifted through the debris Friday, and utility crews worked to restore power in blacked-out neighborhoods. The number of customers without power peaked at 37,000, but that gradually improved Friday. About 29,000 customers, mostly in Queens, had no power midday Friday.
On a badly hit Brooklyn block of 1890s brownstones in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, the storm swept away parts of rooftops on at least six homes.
One four-story rowhouse was so waterlogged that walls were marked Friday with large black Xs — meaning they were to be torn down. In the yard behind, debris lay piled up, including parts of the roof, a crushed gazebo and a whole tree that landed there from two houses away.
"Just look at this," said owner Babe Hatcher, standing in the backyard.
Pointing at the top floor, he said: "No one can sleep up there; there's no ceiling. You can see the sky."
Department of Buildings Commissioner Robert Limandri said the city had received more than 60 reports of buildings with possible structural damage. Officials had ordered residents out of some of the worst-hit homes in Brooklyn.
The city parks department said it was still assessing the tree damage and cautioned that cleanup would likely go on for days. The parks commissioner warned pedestrians to be careful walking under trees that might have broken branches.
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'It was like poltergeist'
All over the city, witnesses compared stories of what they had seen — street signs uprooted, storefront windows blown out, thick tree trunks snapped in half, a parked van lifted a foot into the air.
"A huge tree limb, like 25 feet long, flew right up the street, up the hill and stopped in the middle of the air 50 feet up in this intersection and started spinning," said Steve Carlisle, 54. "It was like a poltergeist."
Interactive: Birth of a tornado (on this page)
"Then all the garbage cans went up in the air and this spinning tree hits one of them like it was a bat on a ball. The can was launched way, way over there," he said, pointing at a building about 120 feet away where a metal garbage can lay flattened.
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Ruby Ellis was doing dishes when the storm wailed over her house and yanked on the roof.
"The wind was holding my ceiling up in the air. It was like a wave; it went up and fell back down," Ellis said. "After the roof went up, then all the rain came down and I had a flood."
The line of storms began its work to the west. At least two tornadoes were confirmed in Ohio, where storms flipped mobile homes, injured several people and damaged part of an Ohio State University campus. A small tornado also touched down in southern New Jersey, knocking over trees and damaging two houses.
Eight twisters have hit New York City since 1950, the National Weather Service said. The last was in July, a small one that whirled through the Bronx during a thunderstorm that left thousands without power. In 2007, a tornado with winds as high as 135 mph touched down in Staten Island and Brooklyn, where it damaged homes and sucked the roof off a car dealership.
© 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or

[JamesG]

Thankfully my neighborhood / home wasn't damaged at all by this; others got it much worse.

It must have lasted maybe a little over 5 minutes here; I noticed the sky get really dark and I heard the strong winds but at the time I didn't realize how serious it was. We really didn't get much damage where I am; more like just a "heavy storm".



Tornadoes in this area are rare. We had one in 2006 and I believe that was the first one in a long time.

[80sTrivia]

[OH Nuts!]

I remember it got really dark here in Manhattan from my office bldg. - bec. it looked so nasty I decided to stay in and work late - thank God I did - had no idea we had experienced tornados - til I saw the news that night.