Tornado touches down in North Brookfield amid heavy rain

Amid serious thunderstorms Sunday, a weak tornado briefly touched down in North Brookfield in the late morning, causing no injuries or property damage.

The National Weather Service confirmed that a 0 EF-level tornado, the least intense tornado level possible, traveled about two miles across the central Massachusetts town between 10:56 a.m. and 10:59 a.m. It had an estimated max wind speed of 80 mph and was about 250 yards wide.

The tornado touched down a little east of the North Brookfield Waste Water Center and traveled northeast, ending slightly east of the intersection of Ryan and Hillsville Road, the service said.

The tornado only damaged trees, the service said, with the most concentrated damage occurring on Ryan Road just north of the intersection with Ward Street.

“There were several eyewitnesses to the tornado, although none of them saw an actual funnel,” the service wrote in a report. “One witness was in an auto body shop and reported strong winds making the garage door bow inward. Another eyewitness, the Fire Chief for North Brookfield, saw debris lofted in the air.”

The North Brookfield Emergency Management Agency indicated that Sunday’s storms caused power outages and multiple downed trees.

It’s not uncommon for Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island to experience a few small tornados each year, NWS meteorologist Alan Dunham said. Usually you need a large thunderstorm, but the storms today weren’t as serious, which is why the tornado was so small, he said.

Many towns in west Essex and northern Worcester Counties were under a tornado watch Sunday, as far west as Townsend and as far east as Tewksbury. But no other towns seem to have experienced a tornado.