Northeast Severe Storm/Tornado Outbreak Was Almost Oklahoma Style

Ominous storm clouds gather over New York City on Tuesday. The storms
caused damage in New York City, and especially further north
in Westchester County.

On Tuesday, we had the spectacle of seeing classic Oklahoma style supercell thunderstorms strike places that aren't exactly tornado alley - like New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.

This really was one of the more spectacular severe weather outbreaks I've seen in the Northeast in recent years. Some videos of the wild weather are at the bottom of this post.

So far, I've heard one or two reports of confirmed tornadoes Tuesday in the Northeast, but I believe that number will rise as National Weather Service investigators pick through areas of particularly heavy damage to see if the destruction was caused by tornadoes, or straight-line winds.

Though most of the damage will end up being from intense gusts, a few places will surely had tornadoes.

There were certainly several supercell thunderstorms in which radar indicated possible tornadoes. At least four deaths have been reported from these big storms, all from trees falling on occupied cars.

A flash flood emergency was declared in Frederick, Maryland (a lovely city where I have relatives). It's got a great downtown with beautiful old buildings, and, sadly, that downtown was definitely affected by the flooding.

The storms were strong enough to create something called a meteotsunami along parts of the East Coast. Tsunamis - often giant surges of water invading coastlines are caused by earthquakes. Meteotsunamis are created by storms and air pressure changes.

It's not as if meteotsunamis are super destructive - they usually just cause rather modest waves and flooding along shorelines, and that was the case Tuesday. In places like coastal New Jersey, wind patterns and abrupt air pressure changes associated with the band of severe storms caused some minor surges and flooding.

Some of the storm damage reports are, again, pretty incredible considering the location. Winds gusted to 78 mph in Beacon, New York. Several roofs were damaged or at least partly blown off buildings in Newburgh, New York. A roof blew off a Dunkin Donuts in Westchester County, New York and another roof blew off a nursery school in Passaic, New Jersey.

Storms sent this large tree crashing through a house in Cheshire, CT

The storms blasted into New York City, turning the evening commute into a nightmare because so many train tracks were blocked by fallen trees.

 At 133rd Street and Broadway in Manhattan, scaffolding and construction debris, including corrugated metal blew down, injuring several people.

Hail the size of tennis balls hit some towns in the Hudson Valley and southwestern New England.

In Granby, Connecticut, the hail was big enough to smash house windows and cars traveling on the town's streets and nearby highways.

Here in Vermont, we dodged another bullet. It looks like there was some strong-ish thunderstorms along the Massachusetts border but there was no major damage.

It had been getting dry in Vermont, and the rains that came Tuesday were heavier than I had expected, which is a good thing. While some places in the state missed out, other towns got a good half inch of rain, which was nice.

Severe thunderstorms are over in the Northeast, but some heavy rain and the risk of flooding is still going to be a problem in parts of the Mid-Atlantic states, especially in already soggy places like Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey.

Here's a tornado-warned storm slamming Saugerties, New York:



Lots of storm damage along the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut. Note the cars stuck on the highway between fallen trees.



Definite rotation Tuesday in Barkhamsted, Connecticut.  Judging from the video, I don't think this one touched down. At least when this video was shot:



Downtown flooded as torrential rain and hail falls in Frederick Maryland: