Residents cross 68th Drive in front of fallen trees at the intersection of Yellowstone Blvd. in the Queens borough of New York on Friday, Sept. 17, 2010, the day the after severe storm tore through New York City. The National Weather Service sought Friday to determine whether the fury of wind and rain that toppled trees, peeled away roofs and killed a woman in a car was a tornado. (AP Photo/Daniel P. Derella)
Two tornadoes hit New York City on Thursday, and if you were traveling in Queens on Thursday afternoon, you may have thought it was the end of the world. It sure looked like it.
Surfing During Hurricane Earl: Pictures
Parkways came to a standstill. Lightening flickered like a strobe light on high speed. And trees fell down all over the place.
Meteorologists confirmed late Friday that Thursday evening’s storm produced two tornadoes and a macroburst that had wind speeds of up to 125 mph.
Remember Hurricane Earl? That really bad storm we were supposed to get hit with? The one we all stressed over for a week before it even happened…and did nothing but sprinkle Long Island with a little rain?
Well, there were no warnings for this one. The storm blew in so quickly in many places the sky turned from sunshine and clouds to black and flashing within 10 minutes. And if you were on the Long Island Expressway or Grand Central Parkway, there was nowhere to go.
The first tornado barreled through the Park Slope section Brooklyn at 5:33 p.m. with winds up to 80 mph, the National Weather Service reported. The second hit Queens at 5:42 p.m. It went from 4 miles from Flushing to a mile north of Bayside, with winds as high as 100 mph. This tornado was the one that led to the death of Aline Levakis, the Pennsylvania woman who was killed after a tree fell on her car in Queens.
Click here to see more images of the Sept. 16 storm.
While the tornadoes sound bad, meteorologists said that the majority of the damage came from the macroburst in Queens. A macroburst is an intense gust of wind that pours down from a storm. According to the National Weather Service, the macroburst started in the Middle Village section of Queens and ended in Forest Hills, and was 8 miles long and 5 miles wide with winds up to 125 mph.
Around 14,000 Con Edison customers were still without power on Friday night. Overall 37,000 customers lost power due to the storm, ConEd said. More than 13,000 Long Island Power Association customers had lost power after the storm as well. ConEd expects to restore power to all customers by Sunday night.
With Associated Press
