Update, Friday, July 11:
A fifth tornado from Tuesday's swath of powerful thunderstorms and twisters has been confirmed by the National Weather Service in Albany. This one in the eastern Adirondacks. More from the Associated Press:
Meteorologists say the twister touched down around 8:40 p.m. Tuesday in the hamlet of North Creek, in the Adirondacks 70 miles north of Albany. The tornado was rated EF-0 with wind speeds of 85 mph. Dozens of trees and power lines were knocked down. Some homes were damaged but no injuries were reported.
That adds to four previously confirmed tornadoes, by our count:
Update, Thursday:
The National Weather service has also confirmed that a tornado touched down in New London, in Oneida County. Meteorologists estimated this tornado as an EF-1, with winds of 80-90 miles per hour. The storm was 600 yards wide and traveled 1 mile, according to the survey team. This makes four confirmed tornadoes that touched down in central and northern New York on Tuesday.
Our original post:
The National Weather Service, the official say on storm damage, has so far concluded at least three tornados touched down in central and northern New York Tuesday evening, one them traveling on a fatal path.
First to be confirmed was the deadly tornado in the Madison County town of Smithfield. It was also the most powerful, the weather service said.
Four people died there when three homes were completely leveled. The EF-2 storm packed winds above 110 miles per hour. The funnel was 235 yards wide, the weather service's Binghamton office said, and traveled 2.5 miles.
North of Utica, a less powerful tornado ripped through Deerfield. The EF-0 storm, with winds of at least 65 m.p.h., caused relatively minor damage.
And in Lewis County, a 300 yard-wide tornado flipped cars and toppled trees as it blew 10 miles through Lowville. About a dozen homes were damaged. A truck was flipped upside down.
The tornado blew winds of 90-100 miles per hour, the weather service's Buffalo office said.
The storm that damaged large swaths of Onondaga County was a microburst, the weather service's survey team concluded. That means winds traveled in a straight line path. They still blew about 75 m.p.h., meteorologists said.
