Tornado In Worcester Confirmed By National Weather Service
WORCESTER (CBS) - The National Weather Service confirmed a tornado touched down briefly in Worcester Sunday night.
In a statement released by the NWS office in Taunton early Monday morning, forecasters said it was an EF0, the lowest rating on the tornado scale, with winds at about 85 miles per hour.
Read: Danielle Niles' Blog On Tornado
The twister began around 8:10 p.m. and ended just four minutes later.
It brought down trees and power lines and damaged cars, but no one was hurt.
Photos: Worcester Tornado Damage
"Some of (the trees) snapped at 40-to-50 feet above the ground, so that probably caused some of the larger branches to fly through the air," Eleanor Talbot of the National Weather Service told WBZ NewsRadio 1030.
"The house was shaking and the windows were falling in. It was quite scary, then it went away," a woman named Jennifer told WBZ NewsRadio 1030 in the Vernon Hill section of the city.
"(We) can't get out the front door because there's a big tree in front of it."
The path of damage was 1.7 miles long and was only one-tenth of a mile wide.
"We are phenomenally lucky the damage wasn't worse," Worcester city manager Edward Augustus, Jr. told WBZ-TV.
Residents must use a city-approved contractor to remove debris from their property in order to avoid spreading the Asian long-horned beetle.
The initial touchdown occurred near the intersection of Perry Avenue and Fairfax Road, just east of Interstate 290 and north of Route 146, according to the weather service.
It passed just east of Saint Vincent's Hospital and ended on Gordon Street, just north of Hamilton Street and west of Harrington Way.
The National Weather Service's SkyWarn network released video Monday from a roof camera of the tornado as it passed through Sunday night.
Michael Roescher put the camera on the roof of his home in Vernon Hill because he's part of SkyWarn's weather watchers network.
He told WBZ-TV he moved to Worcester after losing his home in Monson to a tornado in 2011.
Watch the video here:
The city of Worcester said property owners are responsible for removing trees that are down on their property. A list of certified contractors can be found on the city's website, worcesterma.gov.
The DPW customer service line (508-929-1300) will be open Tuesday for additional questions.
WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Doug Cope reports:
Tornado Confirmed In Worcester
Here is the Fujita Scale for classifying tornadoes:
EF0...WIND SPEEDS 65 TO 85 MPH.
EF1...WIND SPEEDS 86 TO 110 MPH.
EF2...WIND SPEEDS 111 TO 135 MPH.
EF3...WIND SPEEDS 136 TO 165 MPH.
EF4...WIND SPEEDS 166 TO 200 MPH.
EF5...WIND SPEEDS GREATER THAN 200 MPH.
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