Why so many recent tornados in New York State?

Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - It has certainly been an active month of July, when it comes to severe weather across New York State.

Just last week, a total of four tornados touched down in Western New York thanks to one strong storm cell that swept across the region as part of the remnants of Hurricane Beryl. Those tornados affected towns like Arkwright and Hanover in Chautauqua County, Eden and Aurora in Erie County, and Darien and Alexander in Genesee County.

Meanwhile, Tuesday saw a strong EF-2 tornado with estimated peak wind gusts of 135 mph touch down in the City of Rome, N.Y. in Oneida County. The storm swept through a portion of the city's downtown area, and even cut its path across the runway at the former Griffiss Air Force Base.

"That was really a collection of elements that came together to create one of the stronger tornadoes that have come through New York State in recent memory. And that did leave a trail of devastation for a decent amount of time on the ground. It wasn't just rotation in the air, but this made contact and scraped the ground," said meteorologist Andy Parker in an interview with WBEN.

The tornado was so powerful that it even moved the massive Mohawk Valley B-52 Memorial plane off its base, causing it to face another direction.

"Planes are aerodynamic, they'll get moved by the air. But when you start to see things like that, it's a very dramatic damage path spawned by that tornado," Parker noted.

So why has New York State been seeing an influx of tornadic activity over the course of a week's time? Meteorologists point to a couple of different factors that led to the increase in confirmed tornados.

"The one was the tropical remnants [of Hurricane Beryl], but more importantly, it was the circulation associated with that. That's what was the cause of those first four tornados that occurred on the 10th," said National Weather Service meteorologist Kirk Apffel with WBEN.

The other element that spawned tornados in Central New York, including in Rome, is the result of a convective complex that passed by to the North that increased the region's shear temporarily.

"What we've had the past couple of days have been these smaller ripples coming through a very humid atmosphere, and it's really been a matter of timing, where the ripple coincided with the peak heating of the day. So you have this really hot and humid airmass, temperatures up into the 80s, and a lot of moisture. Once the ripple comes in, it acts as a trigger. If that comes in, in the pre-dawn hours when the air is a little cooler, we're not talking about the same situation. But it was the timing and the position of that hot and humid air just waiting to be fired up," Parker explained.

This tornadic activity in parts of Western and Central New York over the last week-plus is quite unusual, and shattered some records along the way.

"Our office, just Buffalo - not even the entire state of New York - issued 18 Tornado Warnings on one day on July 10. That is not only the most we've ever issued in a day, but it's the most we've issued in an entire year. So it was an incredibly busy day," Apffel noted. "We had six confirmed tornadoes in our forecast area, and the four in Western New York. So it is unusual to have that kind of activity, and this is the most Tornado Warnings we've issued here in Buffalo in a year."

According to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the State of New York, in the month of July alone, has seen more tornados touch down across than states like Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa, Mississippi and Alabama combined.

Apffel says this unique weather pattern actually started earlier in the year.

"A lot of areas just to our South in the months of May and June, Ohio and Pennsylvania, had very active severe weather patterns too. And then just in the last month, that really worked its way into New York. So it's definitely been a pattern where we've had a lot more severe weather not in the usual locations this season," he detailed.

States like Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa and others are considered some of the most active areas for tornadic activity, given their proximity in Tornado Alley. Parker says to see New York State out in front of those other states is a weird juxtaposition.

"We'll get thunderstorms here with lightning and hail, but when you start dropping funnels in New York State, higher totals than some of those states off to the West, it really does jar your attention," he said. "And it has been the fact that we've seen these systems come through, the remnants of the hurricane and then also the past couple of ripples that have dropped those funnels that really enhanced our number. It pushed the numbers in New York up over higher some of those states to the West."

The good news in the coming days for the areas affected by tornados across the state is the clean up efforts will be able to continue without any interruptions from the weather.

"It is going to be one of the most beautiful stretches of weather that we've had so far in the month of July. The next five days, when we look at Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and even into early next week, it is a calm, less humid, very comfortable temperature spot, either side of 80 degrees. Things are going to calm down considerably," Parker detailed." The storm track across the nation is going to take a diversion from Western New York and New York State, and we are going to be stuck in this beautiful bubble of air for a number of days. This storm pattern will eventually change and we'll start to see an active pattern in Western New York again, but it's going to take about a five or six-day pause."

With the increased tornadic activity across New York over the last week-plus, is there concern in the long-term for this type of weather becoming more of a yearly occurrence, especially given the changing climate conditions? Apffel feels it's tough to say, at this time.

"This one year, it does not make a change in pattern necessarily, but it definitely was an active year this year. So it'll be something to keep an eye on as the years progress," he said.

As for Parker, he feels the factors that led to the recent outbreak of tornados were pretty big anomalies.

"It's not something that happens that often. The remnants of the hurricane and these ripples just hitting the right timing, you can't look at something that just happened in the past week or two and extrapolate it out and say this is going to be the new normal," Parker explained. "We had two events that really kind of came together in a unique situation. So when you look at that, if we start to see numbers year-to-year-to-year, then you could make that assumption that it's tied to a larger climatic change. But right now, two events that were just kind of anomalies, based on unusual occurrences, you can't really extrapolate out and say, 'Hey, we're getting ready to be the new Tornado Alley.'"