National Weather Service investigating tornado claims
By Jack Phillips
Epoch Times Staff Created: Sep 17, 2010 Last Updated: Sep 17, 2010
NYC Tornado Unconfirmed: New Yorkers on Thursday and Friday were wondering if a tornado had touched down in the city. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
NEW YORK—A storm blew through New York City with violent force, and was over in 20 minutes, leaving New Yorkers wondering if a tornado had touched down.
A brief and violent struck down in the New York City on Thursday evening and National Weather Service (NWS) is investigating whether or not it was a tornado that had struck down. The NWS had issued a tornado warning for Queens and Staten Island on Thursday, Sept. 17 before the storm. Related Articles
"Every street we turned, there were trees down, power lines down,” said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on his weekly WOR radio show on the following Friday morning.
Lightning crashed and thunder roared for a few minutes and a wall of wind and water passed through the city, reportedly tearing roofs off houses, tearing up trees, and knocking down power lines.
A tree which was blown down struck and killed a woman sitting in a parked car in Queens.
Following the chaos, the sound of police and emergency vehicle sirens spread throughout the city.
Queens Boulevard traffic coming from Manhattan to Queens was backed up for miles, as people honked their horns incessantly. One resident said it took them almost two hours to get from Midtown Manhattan to Queens.
According to the Associated Press, 29,000 customers, the bulk of which were in Queens, lost power and crews were still working to restore it on Friday morning.
Tornado Unconfirmed
“No confirmation [of a tornado] has been made yet,” said John Murray, a weather service meteorologist, told Bloomberg News. “Once they go out there they will take note of the damage and come back later today and write up a summary. It will probably be early evening before a determination is made.”
Tornados are usually only thought of as occurring in the Midwest, but as unexpected as it may sound, one or two twisters hit the New York area every year.
Murray added that the weather service radar found that there was a circular rotation in the storm but a funnel cloud has to touch the ground before it is officially called a tornado.
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