Upstate New York was just hammered by 16 tornadoes in one week, the most since official tornado records began in 1950.
The twisters came in two waves: seven on July 10, and nine on Monday and Tuesday of this week.
They hit all over the Upstate map, from the farthest southwestern county in the state, Chautauqua County, to the edge of the High Peaks in the Adirondacks.
The most powerful tornado was the one that struck Rome on Tuesday, with winds of 135 mph. That tornado, which rumbled along for more than five miles, cut a scar of damage through the city that included two toppled church steeples and a fallen brick wall that held an iconic mural.
The only fatality from any of the tornadoes was an 82-year-old man who was struck by debris Tuesday in the Madison County village of Canastota.
The last time someone died in an Upstate tornado was in Madison County in July 2014, when a surprise tornado sprung up in the town of Smithfield and killed four people.
In the past week, Upstate New York also had four microbursts, which are intense gusts of straight, downward winds. (Tornadoes rotate.) The most intense of those, which blew through Schuyler County on Tuesday, had peak wind gusts of 100 mph. That was stronger than many of the tornadoes.
“It’s not the wind that hurts and kills people and causes damage — it’s the stuff that blows or trees falling down on houses or on people or on cars,” said Mark Pellerito, a meteorologist with the weather service’s Binghamton office. “Whether it’s going in a straight line or a tornado, you’re talking about the same type of damage.”
July is the most common time for tornadoes in the northern U.S., said Guy Pearson, a meteorologist with forecasting company Accuweather. That’s when we hit the seasonal peak of heat and humidity, essential ingredients for the formation of strong thunderstorm storms that spawn tornadoes.
“You’ve got your heat, you’ve got your moisture, and then you’ve got the little short waves and pieces of energy that have been riding through that area,” Pearson said. “You’ve got either cold fronts or waves that moved through, which have been the larger triggers that helped to develop as many tornadoes as we’ve seen over the last week.”
The tornadoes were spurred by another atmospheric feature, Pellerito said.
“You had what’s called wind shear, which is when you have a turning of the winds with (higher) elevation,” he said. “When you get a storm on top of that, and it’s able to harness it just right, (tornadoes) can just happen.”
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been keeping detailed tornado records since 1950. Until Wednesday, the most tornadoes recorded in one week in New York was 13, and those occurred on one day: May 31, 1998.
Those storms were collectively stronger than this week’s. Several of the 1998 storms were classified as EF-3, which carry wind speeds of up to 165 mph.
The Enhanced Fujita scale ranks tornadoes from EF-0 to EF-5, based largely on top wind speeds. Most tornadoes in New York are EF-0 or EF-1, with with wind speeds generally 110 mph or less.
The Rome tornado this week had estimated peak gusts of 135 mph, the very top of the EF-2 category.
It was the most powerful tornado in Oneida County since 1990, Pellerito said.