EF0 Tornado — Sullivan, New York

2025-09-25 · near Callicoon Center, Sullivan, New York

Event narrative

Just before noon, a thunderstorm along a warm front separated from the rest of a line of showers and storms and began to rotate. With a favorable environment but low instability, a weak tornado touched down near Callicoon Center. With near peak foliage in parts of the Catskills, it was easy for the weak circulation to loft leaves into the storm that were detected by radar with a debris signature. The circulation was strongest on hilltops and weak to non existent in valleys.

The survey began near Callicoon Center where there was a house with several small trees that fell on the residence. Damage to the residence was minimal. Up the hill on J Young Road there was a greater amount of damage observed, with the tornado crossing paths with old tornado damage from April 22, 2023. There were larger trees that fell in a convergent pattern, and the widest section of the tornado was in this area, estimated to be about 150 yards wide. No damage was observed on Huber Rd and down towards Hazel, so its likely the circulation became disorganized and lifted.

Crossing Route 17 and going up Beaver Hill Rd, there was more damage along the path of rotation that had a cyclonic pattern with the trees that fell on each side of the road in line with previous damage. No other damage was observed on roads that crossed the path of rotation to the town of Margaretville so the tornado was determined to have dissipated near the town of Lewbeach near the Sullivan county and Ulster County border.

Wider weather episode

A warm front lifted northward across Central New York early in the day which drew up plenty of moisture from the south ahead of an approaching cold front. This led to widespread showers, and enough instability was in place being in the warm sector that isolated thunderstorms developed. While instability was modest, strong wind shear was in place which allowed for a couple of storms to become strong to severe with damaging wind gusts. One storm along the warm front began to rotate and wound up producing a weak EF0 tornado near Callicoon Center in Sullivan County.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (41.8264, -74.9563)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1289632. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.