Tornado Touches Down In Westchester: Damage, Injuries

[Matt Molnar]

A tornado has apparently touched down in southern Westchester and caused damage and injuries. A friend of mine is a nurse at Westchester Medical Center in White Plains and says 4 ambulances have arrived with injuries caused by the storm.

The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for southern Westchester around 3:30pm as a result of indications on Doppler radar that a tornado could occur, and later reports of water spouts over the Hudson River near the Tappan Zee Bridge moving toward Tarrytown. CBS reports a building collapse in Hawthorne, and suspension of Metro-North service north of White Plains.

[Mellyrose]

Wow, that's insane. Scares the **** outta me!

[USAF Pilot 07]

Been watching some of the TV news coverage...

Given some of the damage, it sure does look like there was a tornado touchdown.

There's a good pic of the hook echo over the Hudson River, which is what most likely prompted the NWS to issue a Tornado Warning. This is something we rarely see in NY, rather something that's a lot more prevolent with tornadic storms in the Midwest.

[PhilDernerJr]

It took me an hour and 45 minutes to drive home from Mount Vernon....15 miles away.

[Alex T]

Bah thats nothing, heheh you got your blizzard, we get our tornados.

Almost every day we get a tornado watch down where I live.

Its duck and cover and hide yo ass in the basement!

Hope everyone is ok though, as I currently type this, we have a severe thunderstorm rollig through right now, winds, rain, heavy at times, lightning and some hail possible. Just the usual day in Southern Illinois!

Alex

[Midnight Mike]

Wow, that's insane. Scares the **** outta me!

Moderators, somebody needs some soap for their potty mouth.... :lol: :D

[Matt Molnar]

I surveyed some of the damage in Sleepy Hollow and Hawthorne yesterday evening. The media sorta dropped the story after it was reported that it turned out no one was injured, but there was A LOT of damage. On the scale of natural disasters on earth this is at the very bottom, but for this part of the world it was a major event. My friend in Sleepy Hollow had no power until the next morning, and many other people were out for the following day. Many houses and businesses and cars lost roofs, walls, windows, fences, trees. Some roads are still closed. From my mostly peripheral knowledge of local weather phenomena, the rare tornadoes we have here are almost always the weakest sort, F0 or F1 on the Fujita scale of tornado intensity, and do relatively little damage in a confined area. In contrast, this storm was rated an F2 by the National Weather Service, having winds of 113-157mph, and is believed to have stayed on the ground for a considerable distance... from the Hudson River all the way to the Connecticut border and into Long Island Sound.

Yesterday I took some photos of the damage in Hawthorne and Sleepy Hollow. Not great quality as the light was difficult, but pretty interesting anyway.


Note the missing roof on the gas station, the swath of downed trees behind it, and the cars with broken windows to the right.


This is the store that "collapsed" as reported on the news. It seems the walls were just sucked in and fell down.


Big swath of trees just smushed on a hill adjacent to Sleepy Hollow High School.


More downed trees behind the high school.


The scariest thing about the damage was that most of the downed trees were not uprooted but simply snapped at the trunk.

[SengaB]

Amazing shots there Gotham.
Damn thing was about 8 miles from my house. I wanted to go chase it but the warning came too late based on where I was so I went back home. It didn't help that my power was out! So I had no way to track it before I left.
I miss my storm chasing days..finally get a nader since I have been here and I botch it.
Senga

[PhilDernerJr]

I work not too far from there. Gotham, you gotta call me for lunch man.

[Matt Molnar]

I work not too far from there. Gotham, you gotta call me for lunch man.

I'm not up there too often, I was just visiting my friend for the day. :)