9/16/10 DISC: NY

[Jason Harris]

Was anyone on the site in the vicinity of this possible tornado from Brooklyn to Queens?

Some entertaining description from a bystander:

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.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jf3vnEHctXph_5-Z9gtHZVGqImUgD9I9U1500

 

[Jason Harris]

Apparently 2 tornadoes hit:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100918/ap_on_re_us/us_nyc_storm

meteorologists determined late Friday that the storm that barreled across a large swath of Brooklyn and Queens a day earlier spawned two tornadoes and a fierce macroburst with wind speeds up to 125 mph.

What was surprising, meteorologists said, was that only one person died.

"It's practically a miracle considering the population that was affected by this," said Kyle Struckmann, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

The tornadoes were the ninth and 10th to hit New York City since 1950, according to the weather service.

One 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 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 a woman was killed, according to the National Weather Service. Aline Levakis was in the parked car with her husband, Billy Levakis. The Pennsylvania couple had just switched seats in the car, said a former business partner, Peter Markos. Billy Levakis survived.

some pics at the yahoo link. Also macroburst had most impact:

The macroburst packed the biggest punch, said Brian Ciemnecki, another weather service meteorologist. Stretching 8 miles long and 5 miles wide, it 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.

weather service report:
http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&issuedby=OKX&product=PNS

includes more specific details on locations and macroburst definition:

FOR REFERENCE...
A MACROBURST IS A CONVECTIVE DOWNDRAFT WITH AN AFFECTED OUTFLOW AREA
OF AT LEAST 2 1/2 MILES WIDE AND PEAK WINDS LASTING BETWEEN 5 AND 20
MINUTES. INTENSE MACROBURSTS MAY CAUSE TORNADO-FORCE DAMAGE OF UP TO
EF3 INTENSITY. STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS ARE GENERALLY ANY WIND THAT IS
NOT ASSOCIATED WITH ROTATION...USED MAINLY TO DIFFERENTIATE THEM
FROM TORNADIC WINDS.

 

[JoelHamburger]

I was there.

I live about 2 blocks (maybe 700 ft) from the path of the first tornado as determined by the NWS survey.

It's hard for me to reconcile how I experienced the wind with what I would expect in relation to where the circulation was reported to be. Of course in an urban area it's impossible to tell what's going oF as we live in artificial canyons.

The damage is incredibly widespread. I walked around for a few hours friday and it seems that every block withing a 3-4 x 1 mile area has 3-5 trees down with many others seriously damaged (there are probably 15-20 trees per block on the street).

All my friends are joking that the tornado came to me this time !

joel

 

[Jason Harris]

So were you outside at the time of the winds? What was visibility like? Intensity? No visible funnel I suppose?

 

[JoelHamburger]

I was looking out my front door which was open.

Visibility was not too bad, a lot of horizontal wind blown rain. I could easily see across the street.

I'm surrounded by 3-4 and 5-6 story buildings so there was no way I'd have been able to see a funnel.

It was very intense for something around here but I've been through a lot worse on the plains.. I'd estimate the winds gusted around 70-80 mph at most.

I see did see a sandwich board get blown down the block..

The most impressive damage I saw was a 50-60 year old callery pear tree that was snapped off halfway up the trunk. The upper half was blown a good 70 ft on. This was in the tornado's path.

joel