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EF1 tornado in Erie County, New York

Tornado August 5, 2024 · Erie County, New York

EF1
Rating
1.4 mi
Path length
300 yd
Path width
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 300 yards (0.17 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

National Weather Service storm survey confirms that a tornado touched down in the city of Buffalo near Niagara Street and Carolina Street.

The wider storm

A cold front slowly dropping south across Lake Ontario stalled near/along the south shore of Lake Ontario. As the front approached the Western New York area, shear and instability increased. The front stalled a bit farther north than expected, causing more of the thunderstorm activity to develop over the Niagara Frontier.

A tornado began at the shore of the Niagara River and tracked from near the south end of LaSalle Park into downtown Buffalo for approximately 1.4 miles. The tornado developed within a thunderstorm along converging lake boundaries from both Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.

Heavy rainfall with some of the thunderstorms did result in Flash Flooding as well.

Began near Buffalo (42.8894, -78.8940).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1211614. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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