Tornadoes rare, but not unheard of, in Connecticut
Tornadoes have been wreaking havoc in the Midwest, and though the tornado risk is low to nonexistent in Connecticut over the next day, they’re not unheard of.
Unlike hurricanes, tornadoes are not very predictable. You might get a few days notice, at most.
“Tornadoes are much more on-demand,” said Western Connecticut State University meteorologist Gary Lessor, though he does not predict any tornadoes in Connecticut over the next day or so.
“There’s a 15 to 20 percent chance of thunderstorms this afternoon, probably a 5 percent chance, at best, of wind damage or hail and there’s a minute chance for a tornado,” he said.
According to the National Weather Service, there have been 129 tornado “events” since 1950. All those tornadoes have resulted in a total of four deaths.
The worst Connecticut tornado in living memory was on Oct. 3, 1979 in Hartford. It is listed as having been an “F4,” resulting in three of the four tornadorelated deaths since 1950 and $500 million in damage.
“F” refers to Dr. Tetsuya Theodore Fujita, who developed a system to estimate wind speeds based on the damage left behind by a tornado, according to the National Weather Service. In 1971, a group of scientists created an “enhanced Fujita” scale, which takes more
damage indicators into account and has been used since then.
The other tornado-related death in Connecticut since 1950 occurred on May 24, 1962, when an F3 hit
New Haven County. The only other F4 listed in Connecticut was on July 10, 1989.
Most tornadoes happen in the spring and summer, Lessor said.
“We will have, typically, multiple tornadoes in a year, but they’ll be on the weak side,” he said.
Tornadoes are the result of wind shear, strong air currents moving at an angle. In the midwest, Lessor said, the air is much drier, and as a weather front comes in from the west, there is warm, moist air coming up from the Gulf, “and that creates the more devastating tornadoes on a more regular basis.”
Chris Roscia of the Connecticut Weather Center said that because there are no hills or mountains immediately east of the Rocky Mountains, that gives the air room to move.
“You’re in a very open space, there’s not much elevation change, you’re closer to the low pressure itself because you’re close to that transitory cycling zone and there’s nothing to block any of its energy from getting to you,” he said.
So, while there may have been hundreds of tornadoes in Connecticut listed as F0 strength over the past 75 years, they’re not often going to do much damage.
“It’s not a huge tornado environment here,” Roscia said, though Lessor called it the “luck of the draw.”
Microbursts are similar to tornadoes, and they have been known to cause damage, such as the suspected microburst that knocked down trees in Wethersfield last July.
A tornado in Killingly, listed as an EF1, was also blamed for damage to trees and homes.
“When they hit populated areas, they do so much devastation,” Lessor said.