EF2 tornado in Merrimack County, New Hampshire

Tornado July 24, 2008 · Merrimack County, New Hampshire

EF2

Rating

50.5 mi

Whole path

880 yd

Path width

Death

Injuries

$2.0M

Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Rockingham County → Merrimack County → Belknap County → Strafford County → Carroll County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 880 yards (0.50 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF2 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF2 is considerable damage: roofs torn off well-built houses, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, consistent with estimated gusts of 111–135 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

An E-F2 tornado moving north northeast out of Rockingham County crossed into Merrimack County near Route 202 and continued north northeast a little over 5 miles before entering Belknap County. Homes and buildins in the tornadoes path sustained damage along the path which was up to a half mile wide.

The wider storm

On July 24th a closed 500 mb low was digging over NY/PA and waves of surface low pressure were riding north along the associated surface front to the west of the forecast area. A strong 50kt low level jet was also riding northward ahead of the front. This resulted in extremely high helicity values across southern and central New Hampshire. A surface dew point boundary was in place across south central New Hampshire with readings in the lower 70s to the east of this boundary and in the mid 60s to the west. Sunshine began breaking out to the east of this boundary by mid morning and convection began developing by late morning. Storms grew rapidly and quickly began rotating. A tornado rated as strong as F2 cut a 50 mile path through 5 counties in southeast New Hampshire resulting in 1 fatality and damage to over 100 structures some of which were completely destroyed.

Began near Epsom (43.2224, -71.2784).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 123353. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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