A tornado warning was issued for a small section of southwest Nassau County Thursday evening as a line of severe thunderstorms rolled through Long Island, though the warning was lifted roughly 12 minutes after it went out.
The National Weather Service issued the tornado warning at 6:52 p.m. for the Oceanside and Baldwin Harbor area, tied to a severe thunderstorm near Rockaway Beach and part of a broader severe weather system slamming metropolitan New York. The warning, which briefly included Queens before that area was dropped, expired around 7:04 p.m. with no confirmed touchdown reported.
The tornado scare came as torrential rain moved across Long Island Thursday night, part of a First Alert Weather day across the region. Resiudents on the South Shore capture images of the tornado touching down over the water.
GLI meteorologist Samantha Augeri shared this ominous video of a cyclone:
Around 6:45 p.m., a waterspout moved onshore near Atlantic Beach, becoming a tornado and ripping through the Sun and Surf Beach Club toward Silver Point with damaging winds, Augeri said.
“The storm later weakened as it moved east, bringing torrential rain and localized flooding to parts of Long Island,” she added. “It was probably a low-end tornado. Those beach structures are not too strong, and when we get tornadoes on Long Island, they’re typically rated EFO and EF1 on the tornado scale and that would mean winds in a range of 65-110 mph.”
A flash flood warning was also issued for the South Shore of Nassau County as thunderstorms dumped heavy rain at rates of one to three inches per hour, with storm totals expected to reach one to two inches and isolated pockets as high as three to five inches.
Barbara Parnell in Atlantic Beach shared the photos below, depicting the devastation left in the wake of the storm.
Brooklyn got three inches of rain by 7:15 p.m.
For Long Island, the flood watch is expected to stretch past midnight.
Conditions are expected to improve Friday, with a mix of sun and clouds and highs near 80 — before another round of heavy rain and strong storms moves in Saturday.
Top: Barbara Parnell
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