National Weather Service: Conn. tornado confirmed

EAST WINDSOR, Conn. (AP) — The National Weather Service confirmed a small tornado occurred near Windsor Locks in north-central Connecticut on Monday.

In an evening statement, the weather service in Taunton, Mass. said an EF1 tornado, with estimated maximum wind speeds of 86 miles per hour, traveled 2.5 miles from Windsor Locks, across the Connecticut River and ended in East Windsor. The scale for tornadoes ranges from an EF0 to and EF5.

The tornado, estimated to be about 200 yards wide, occurred between approximately 1:30 p.m. and 1:35 p.m. No injuries have been reported.

The NWS said numerous trees were downed, including some onto cars and houses. As the tornado traveled northeast, it ripped tobacco tents from fields and flattened some of the tobacco. Some eyewitnesses reported seeing debris thrown into the air and hearing what sounded like a freight train.

"We've had very significant issues in a short period of time," East Windsor Police Chief Edward DeMarco said.

The storm also knocked down the Sports World bubble dome, blowing some of the dome onto nearby Interstate 91. A tractor trailer truck was blown over in a shopping center parking lot in East Windsor.

WVIT-TV reported that camp counselors received tornado warnings on their phones and moved campers out of the dome before the storm arrived.

Despite the damage, DeMarco said it could have been a lot worse.

Connecticut Light & Power stated less than 1,300 outages in southwestern and north-central Connecticut by early Monday evening.

The storm also flooded streets in Ridgefield and downed power lines. It swept through southwest Connecticut from Greenwich to Redding, where CL&P reported outages affecting several hundred customers.

Cox Media Group