National Weather Service: Tornado touched down in Mattituck
Storm damage in Mattituck after a tornado touched down Sunday. Credit: LiHotShots/Thomas J. Lambui
A tornado with winds of up to 85 mph touched down in Mattituck on Sunday night, the National Weather Service said Monday afternoon.
The tornado struck at 11:17 p.m. Sunday and lasted three minutes as it carved a 2.1-mile long by 75-yard-wide path, according to the weather service. The tornado was rated EF-0, the weakest rating for a twister, the weather service’s website said.
No injuries were reported. Damage from the thunderstorm that accompanied the tornado was seen in Babylon, Ronkonkoma, Hampton Bays and Riverhead and includes downed power lines and tree limbs.
Meteorologists from the National Weather Service had spent Monday working with Suffolk County Office of Emergency Management officials to confirm the tornado, which touched down during a thunderstorm that barreled through Mattituck late Sunday.
Southold Town Supervisor Scott Russell said that most of the damage was in the mid- to north parts of Mattituck. Russell said he was not aware of any injuries but five trees had been knocked down and a little less than 400 people temporarily lost power after the tornado struck.
“What I’m aware of is a lot of tree damage,” Russell said. “I don’t know if there’s been an assessment yet of structural damage.”
Weather service meteorologist Jay Engle said a cold-front triggered the storms that hit the area around Sound Avenue after 11 p.m. Sunday.
Suffolk County's Fire Rescue and Emergency Services also deployed its drone team to Mattituck alongside the National Weather Service to assess the damage and supplied aerial footage to document damage that may have been missed otherwise.
A EF0 tornado was also confirmed to have touched down in Mattituck on Aug. 10, 2016. It lasted a minute, traveled at 70 mph and went .3 miles in a 40-yard-wide path. There were no injuries.
A tornado is defined by the weather service as: "A violently rotating column of air, usually pendant to a cumulonimbus, with circulation reaching the ground. It nearly always starts as a funnel cloud and may be accompanied by a loud roaring noise. On a local scale, it is the most destructive of all atmospheric phenomena."
An EF0 tornado packs winds of between 65 mph and 85 mph, according to the Enhanced Fujita scale.
