WARMINGTON: No easy solutions for Toronto’s Beaches-East York

A tornado struck near New York City on Thursday, marking a rare occurrence for the region. This prompted questions about why such severe weather touched down in the unlikely locale. The answer lies in atmospheric conditions. While tornadoes are frequent in the central and southeastern U.S., they can arise anywhere with the right setup: a moist, unstable atmosphere and storm rotation.

A deluge of rain, up to five inches in some spots, drenched the area from northeast New Jersey to Long Island on Thursday evening, leading to widespread flash flooding. However, the most attention was on the tornadoes themselves. The Long Island twister made landfall in Atlantic Beach, starting as a tornadic waterspout over water before coming ashore and causing damage to buildings and cabanas.

Radar also showed cloud rotation near Far Rockaway, Queens, though no photographic evidence or reported damage was found. Meteorologists are investigating the damage to gauge the tornado's duration, size, and wind strength, as well as whether the second possible tornado touched down. Tornadoes are rare in New York State and New Jersey due to the region's lack of the powerful air collisions that fuel them, typically seen in the Great Plains and Southeast.

Since 1950, only 88 tornadoes have been reported in New York State, most of them low on the Enhanced Fujita scale. The last tornadoes in the New York City area occurred in November 2021 and 2012, when a waterspout came ashore in Queens. While not unprecedented, such tornadoes in the city are still uncommon.