New York City Twisters, Rare Or Common?

We have always heard tornadoes spinning around in The Great Plains and either staying in open fields or hitting small, residential towns, but not so much hitting large, metropolis cities like lately.  Recently, tornadoes have hit Dallas/Fort Worth, TX this year; Atlanta, GA in 2008; Salt Lake City, UT in 1999; and even Miami, FL in 1998.  So tornadoes in large cities aren't unheard of, but fairly uncommon.  On Sept. 8, 2012, two tornadoes tore through the coastline and portions of the city in New York City!  Not somewhere you would think tornadoes would touchdown being near water and as far north as it is.

One of the tornadoes were reported in Breezy Point which is part of Queens and the other tornado was spotted in East New York in the Kings (Brooklyn) area.

But wait a second, this can't be!  Tornadoes in New York City have got to be cinematic or mistaken!  Well, they are cinematic!  In 2008, this movie came out when the global warming talk was the hot topic and New York City, being the largest city in the U.S., is always feared to be the deadliest target.


Tornadoes in New York City are also very realistic as we saw on Sept. 8, 2012, but how common are tornadoes in New York City?  Since tornado records have began in 1950, there has only been about a dozen tornadoes to strike The Big Apple.  In 1985, an F1 tornado struck the Queens area that injured 6 people.  In 1990, an F0 tornado struck Staten Island that injured 3 people and another tornado in 1995 touchdown in Staten Island causing no injuries or fatalities.  Also in 1995, an F0 tornado touched down in the Manhattan area causing about $30,000 in damage and injured 1 person.  Those are just some of the detailed tornadoes that were recorded.  Here is a map of all the tornadoes that occurred in New York City from 1950-2011.

A total of 10 tornadoes have been reported within 1950-2011.  Now 2 more can be added to that from this year and one that isn't even shown on the previous map from 1995 making 13 tornadoes have touched down in The Big Apple over a 63-year period with the strongest of those being an F2 on the old Fujita Scale.  One of the two new ones can be added to the Brooklyn area and the other in the Queens area.  Staten Island has experienced 4 tornadoes, Brooklyn has experience 3 tornadoes (one of those originating over Staten Island), Queens has experienced 4 tornadoes, The Bronx has experience 2 (one of those originated over Bergen County, NJ), and Manhattan has experienced 1.

So now the ultimate question, are tornadoes in New York City rare or common?  Neither.  On average, a tornado will touchdown in the New York City area once every 5 years.  Tornadoes in NYC are fairly uncommon.