Damage in parts of Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts — namely North Attleborough — caused by Wednesday’s storms was confirmed on Thursday to be from a tornado.
The National Weather Service announced that damage found in Killingly, Connecticut; Foster, Glocester and Lincoln, Rhode Island; and North Attleborough “was tornadic,” they said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“(The) team is still determining if it was a continuous path of separate touchdowns, a final EF-rating, path length and width,” the post read.
The EF, or Enhanced Fujita scale, ranks the intensity of a tornado’s wind speed. EF-0 and EF-1, between 65 and 110 mph, are considered weak; EF-2 and EF-3 tornadoes are expected to be strong, reaching speeds of 111 to 165 mph; and EF-4 and EF-5 tornadoes reaching somewhere between 166 or over 200 mph are considered violent, according to the weather service.
On Wednesday, several warnings were issued telling residents in Bristol, Norfolk and Plymouth counties to “take shelter now” as storm winds escalated. By the evening, the weather service said it was likely a tornado hit the ground.
All of this happened as New England braces for Hurricane Lee, which is expected to drench Rhode Island, the coast of Eastern Massachusetts and Maine’s coast up toward Canada.
