Tornado Confirmed In Millis During Oct. 7 Storm
MILLIS (CBS) -- The National Weather Service confirmed Saturday that an EF-0 tornado occurred in Millis during the storm on Oct. 7. The tornado had wind speeds up to 80 mph.
A damage survey was conducted after the NWS spoke with emergency management officials and looked at radar images of the storm.
"Even though it was more than one week ago, we were able to determine that a weak EF-0 tornado circulations occurred in a small portion of the town of Millis, MA. It was embedded with the larger area of the derecho/straight-line wind event that occurred that day," said an NWS statement.
The tornado traveled about half a mile in about one minute at 5:50 p.m. The maximum path width was 50 yards.
According to the NWS, it began near Orchard Street and traveled east-southeast to the Oak Grove Playground/Millis Historical Commission on Exchange Street.
The storm has already been labeled as a derecho, which is a line of thunderstorms that holds together for a very long time (at least 240 miles) while producing widespread damaging, straight-line winds that are persistently greater than 58 mph. This one started around the Lake Ontario area and made it all the way to Cape Cod (about 300 miles).
The last derecho in New England was in 1995.