A tornado touched down Monday morning on Fishers Island, an exclusive community off the coast of the East End, but no injuries or fatalities were reported, according to the National Weather Service.
The twister was rated an EFO, the weakest on the tornado scale, with winds up to 85 mph, the same as another twister that hit Ronkonkoma four weeks ago, NWS said. The Fishers Island tornado traveled about two miles beginning 7:35 a.m. Monday, but the width of its path is unknown. Numerous trees and power lines were down across the island.
“Small buildings were removed off their foundations,” Upton-based NWS meteorologists said in a preliminary report. “There are numerous power outages across the island and numerous boats were tossed around near the water.”
The report indicated that the tornado started as a water spout before moving over land, becoming and tornado, then moved back offshore as a waterspout.
NWS officials are conducting an on-site investigation to survey the damage with local officials on Wednesday.
The ferry to Fishers Island connects with Connecticut, which the island is closer to, but the community falls under the umbrella of the Town of Southold and Suffolk County.
The twister comes after another small tornado touched down in Ronkonkoma on Oct. 2. Before that, the last time a tornado hit Long Island was in 2016, when another small tornado hit Mattituck, although a twister touched down in Whitestone, Queens several months ago.
And the last tornado to hit LI before the Mattituck twister was in 2012. That tornado traveled from Great River to Lake Ronkonkoma.
