LINCOLN, N.H. —
A tornado touched down twice in New Hampshire on Monday, according to the National Weather Service.
A hiker captured video from Mount Pemigewassett of a small tornado touching down in Lincoln, officials said.
The NWS confirmed that the tornado originally touched down near the town of Bath. The EF-0 tornado had an estimated wind speed of 75 mph and had a maximum width of 25 yards. It cut a path of about 9.45 miles.
It touched down initially at 3:03 p.m. in the midst of three tornado warnings issued in northern New Hampshire over a 90-minute stretch. It touched down again at 3:32 p.m.
Officials said the video of the tornado clearly showed cloud circulation in contact with the ground and strong cyclonic rotation at the cloud base.
“The tornado itself may not be visible from the cloud to the ground, and in this case, it wasn’t,” said John Jensenius of the National Weather Service.
The tornado was spotted west of Interstate 93, south of Cannon Mountain, west of the Flume Gorge, northwest of Loon Mountain and northeast of the Lost River Gorge.
Officials with the National Weather Service said they are grateful for citizen reporters who use their phones to safely record video and photos of the severe weather happening around them. They said they rely on such contributions to draw conclusions about weather events.
Other images and videos of dramatic clouds were captured in Durham and Newmarket, but meteorologists said they weren’t rotating and didn’t touch the ground, so they were not tornadoes.
“If it was a tornado, it should have two types of motion,” Jensenius said. “One would be a forward motion, and secondly, we get rotational motion, and that rotational motion would be indicated oftentimes by the trees that are down.”
The severe weather affected people and animals as it moved through. Clark’s Trading Post workers said they had to end their bear show early because handlers said the animals began acting strangely. Flume Gorge workers rounded up visitors and moved them to safety as the storm moved in.
“There were indications on the radar that there might have been a tornado there, so we were looking in that area, and then through the media, we ended up obtaining that video that somebody had taken that they thought may have been a tornado,” Jensenius said.
Analysis of damage on the ground after a suspected tornado also helps scientists with confirmation.
by Amy Coveno (2018, June 19) WMUR
