Tornado tally rises to 4 as Beryl remnants hit WNY

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BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) – The National Weather Service confirmed four tornadoes hit Western New York on Wednesday as the remnant storms from Hurricane Beryl blew through the region.

Two EF-1 tornadoes and two EF-0s touched down south of the Buffalo metro area within a span of two hours during a record-setting day for severe weather in our region. No fatalities have been reported, though there were a few minor injuries.

An EF-1 tornado with wind speeds up to 110 mph hit the Chautauqua County town of Arkwright at approximately 12:06 p.m., damaging trees and homes along a three-mile path before ending in Hanover. The tornado reached a maximum width of 150 yards, the NWS found.

A dramatic video seen in the video player above showed part of a roof being ripped off a home in Arkwright as the tornado raged past.

The second tornado touched down in Eden at 12:40 p.m., according to the NWS. Although the tornado was qualified as an EF-0, with wind speeds reaching 85 mph, significant damage was caused by fallen trees in an area near the intersection of Gary Drive and Sauer Road. A State of Emergency was declared for the town.

The Eden tornado reached a maximum width of 75 yards while traveling 0.9 miles.

At approximately 12:59 p.m., a third tornado hit the Town of Aurora, near West Falls. The EF-1 reached wind speeds of 110 mph and covered a path of 1.5 miles while stretching to a width of 400 yards, making it by far the widest tornado of the day.

A fourth confirmed tornado touched down in Genesee County near Darien at 1:42 p.m, the NWS confirmed Thursday morning. The EF-0 tornado saw winds up to 75 mph and caused tree damage along a 1-mile path up to 50 yards wide.

Plotting the tornado locations on a map shows that all four touched down on a fairly straight line. The reason for this, according to WIVB Chief Meteorologist Todd Santos, is that all four tornadoes belonged to the same parent thunderstorm.

“It was a supercell thunderstorm, so it was a slow rotating thunderstorm with rotating updraft and it was able to touch a tornado down a couple separate times,” Santos said. … The supercell thunderstorms, because they have that rotating updraft, can actually hold together better over longer distances. I’m glad we didn’t have any longer path lengths than what we had out there; I was actually concerned about that yesterday for how long we tracked them.”

More than 25,000 power outages were reported in Erie County at the height of the storms just after 1 p.m., but that number was down to a few thousand by Wednesday evening and nearly all were restored by Thursday morning.

Wednesday’s storms are believed to be the first tornadoes to hit Western New York since an EF-2 touched down in Wyoming County in 2022. They were part of a damaging day across the state that saw a single-day record of 18 tornado warnings issued by the National Weather Service’s wide-stretching Buffalo office, according to meteorologist Eric Snitil at our sister station in Rochester.

The remnant storms of Beryl — the earliest ever Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic basin that slammed Jamaica and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula last week before making landfall again in Texas and taking a northeastern turn — were responsible for at least 37 confirmed tornadoes across the United States between Monday and Wednesday, the Weather Channel’s Jonathan Erdman reported . That number is expected to grow as the NWS confirms additional tornadoes.

Severe thunderstorms and an isolated tornado risk were in the forecast for the region Wednesday, along with strong wind gusts and heavy rain that could produce localized flooding. Much of WNY was projected to see 1-2 inches of rain Wednesday, according to the 4Warn Weather team , with some areas potentially reaching higher numbers.

After a chaotic afternoon, most of Western New York was removed from a Tornado Watch just before 5 p.m., though it remained in Allegany County until later Wednesday night.

The NWS issued several updated Tornado Warnings on Wednesday.

The initial Tornado Warning was issued for parts of Chautauqua County and expired at 12:15 p.m. The second update was issued for southern Erie County at 12:24 p.m. and grew to include central Erie County and portions of northwestern Wyoming County and southwestern Genesee County as the storm moved across the area.

Separate Tornado Warnings were issued Wednesday afternoon for southeastern Chautauqua County and western Cattaraugus County, including the city of Jamestown; and another warning over Allegany County and Potter County, Pa.

This is a developing story, check back for updates.

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