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EF1 tornado in Fairfield County, Connecticut

Tornado June 24, 2010 · Fairfield County, Connecticut

EF1
Rating
0.2 mi
Path length
100 yd
Path width
3
Injuries
$3.2M
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 100 yards (0.06 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

An NWS Storm Survey determined that an EF-1 Tornado, with maximum winds of 110 mph, impacted a small portion of Bridgeport. The survey found many signs of wind rotation in a highly localized area just north of Interstate 95. The area was bounded by the Interstate 95 northbound connector on the west and Pembroke Street on the east. The most severe damage was concentrated along East Main Street between Nichols Street on the south and Cedar Street on the North. In this area, windows were blown in, the facade of a building was stripped off, tree tops were sheared off, and large pieces of metal blown off from surrounding structures were wrapped around a fire hydrant. Eyewitness reports described a rain wrapped tornado with visibility near zero in swirling heavy rain and debris. Note the damage estimate is just a portion of the total damage to Bridgeport.

The wider storm

A cold front and strong upper level trough moved across the Tri-State, triggering severe thunderstorms across Southwest Connecticut during the afternoon. This included both supercells and squall lines, producing an EF-1 Tornado in Bridgeport, and severe winds and hail across the remainder of the region.

Began near Bridgeport (41.1810, -73.1816).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 242288. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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