Sunday night, around 10 P.M., a tornado struck the Grafton Hill and Vernon Hill neighborhoods of Worcester, Massachusetts. It reached winds of 85 miles per hour, which made it an EF0, the weakest of tornadoes. According to NBC 10 News, it was still able to uproot and snap in half several trees during its four minute, 1.7 mile path of destruction. Trees landed on cars and house windows. The Worcester Academy soccer field was decimated. Astroturf was ripped up, and a soccer goal was found in a tree.
“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 said according to CBS. Some residents were unable to leave at first because trees blocked their doors and windows.
No injuries were reported, and the city government was thankful the damage wasn’t worse. The cleanup effort will be tricky since residents may only use city approved contractors. The city also has many environmental concerns since the damage to trees risks the spread of the Asian long-horned beetle.
News, Weather and Classifieds for Southern New England
WCVB reported that for this tornado, and a previous one near Revere, MA back in July, the tornado warnings came after the tornadoes had come and gone. This has left residents like Michael Roescher wishing the system could be improved. He managed to shoot a video of the tornado with his home-mounted weather camera. “My hopes are that with watching these things, sometime down the road we can improve notification locally. Not giving the warning four minutes past,” he said according to CBS.
According to Boston.com, the local weather should be much improved. There will be high temperatures and high humidity, but hopefully, no tornadoes.
The path of the EF0 tornado that touched down in Worcester http://t.co/JqcqfSSeh7 @T_G_Graphics #Worcester pic.twitter.com/OQPGyHJzGy
— Telegram & Gazette (@telegramdotcom) September 1, 2014