Home Care In Holden, MA

BOSTON —

National Weather Service teams confirmed that tornadoes touched down in at least four Massachusetts communities on Saturday afternoon.

On Monday, NWS said a lower-range EF-1 tornado touched down in Paxton and Holden at about 4:15 p.m. Saturday. According to NWS, EF-1s have winds of 86 mph to 110 mph.

"We can see evidence of a tornado in the Paxon and Holden area. Right now, we're just out here putting the pieces together, trying to figure out the path length, the width, maybe how strong it was," said Rob Megnia of NWS.

The NWS also confirmed that EF-1 tornadoes touched down in the towns of Berlin and Stow on Saturday.

It was not immediately clear if the same tornado skipped from location to location or if there were anywhere from one to four separate tornadoes.

Video: How many tornadoes? Cindy explains how NWS figures it out

"The question mark is how much of this is one cell and how much of this is a skip?" StormTeam 5 meteorologist Mike Wankum said. "If it's a skip of less than two miles, it's considered the same tornado. If it's more than two miles, it's considered a separate tornado."

Heavy damage was also surveyed in the western Massachusetts towns of Otis and Blandford, but meteorologists "did not see any evidence of a tornado in those locations" and determined the damage was from straight-line winds, NWS said.

"It got dark. And I couldn't see out the windows anymore because I thought it was because the rain was just blowing by. My wife was upstairs, closing some windows, and she heard that classic train noise, and she came tearing down the stairs and said, 'We need to get to the basement,'" Paxton's Glenn Sullivan said.

Moments later, a giant tree crashed onto his 300-year-old home.

Video: Tornadoes confirmed in at least 4 Mass. towns

Nearby, Holden residents said the storm only lasted about three minutes, but the damage it created is devastating.

"I've never experienced anything like this," said Willow Brook Road resident Drew Richard. "It got really windy, like a huge gust of wind like I have never seen before, and then all the patio furniture started moving around the pool, it got blown everywhere."

On Monday, clean-up efforts were in full swing.

"We actually had to reschedule a lot of our work from this whole entire week because this is priority. When people have trees knocked over, we need to clean it up quick," said Nicholas Kent, owner of Kent Tree Landscape.

Sky5 surveys damage from Saturday's tornadoes

"Twenty-four-inch trees were just snapping and rolling over in front of me. It was wild; only lasted like three minutes, but it was utter destruction," resident Janna Goodnow said.

A tree fell on top of a Holden home and landed in the living room. Neighbors said the storm sounded like a freight train, and it was clear the safest place was going to be the basement.

"I looked outside and I saw all this wind whipping up trees and stuff, and there was a big maple over there that I saw just getting ripped out of the ground," Holden resident Matthew Waite said.

"I just picked up the kids and was like, 'Get in the basement,' and then after waiting like five, 10 minutes, came up and then just saw the damage everywhere," Holden resident John Peden said.

Berlin fire Chief Michael McQuillen said it took nearly a day to reopen one town street after the tornado touched down.

"It took down a lot of trees and telephone poles going down West Street," McQuillen said. "It took us basically 24 hours to get this stretch of West Street open so we could get traffic flowing again and get power secured."

Lucy Ayers says the event started with pouring rain and hail — then she heard a building roar.

"It was the sound of a train, a locomotive, and that's one of the signs there's something coming," Ayers said. "So I came right back into the house. I stood in my hallway and watched the trees just turning and rotating like I've never seen it before."

With the NWS finishing its assessment, final cleanup and repairs are underway.

Luckily, there were no injuries reported.

BOSTON —

Five EF1 tornadoes with wind speeds ranging from 94 mph to 104 mph touched down in four Massachusetts communities Saturday afternoon, the National Weather Service said.

According to the NWS, the first one set down in Paxton at about 4:02 p.m. It had estimated winds of 100 mph and a path of 0.17 miles long and was 50 yards wide. A second one touched down in Paxton four minutes later near South Road. It had estimated peak winds of 94 mph, traveled a distance of about 0.13 miles and had a width of 100 yards.

The first Paxton tornado touched down near Arrowhead Drive, crossed Richards Avenue and caused significant tree damage. The second one touched down near South Road and uprooted several softwood trees, NWS said.

The third tornado touched down over Willow Brook Road in Holden at 4:08 p.m. This tornado had winds of 104 mph, was about 100 yards wide and traveled 0.15 miles. It caused “significant tree damage,” NWS said.

The fourth tornado touched down in Berlin at 4:25 p.m., had 104 mph winds, was about 150 yards wide and traveled about 0.60 miles. It touched down west of Barnes Hill Road and traveled to Derby Road and West Street, snapping many softwood and hardwood trees and uprooting others.

The fifth and final tornado set down in Stow at about 4:30 p.m. It also had wind speeds of 104 mph and a width of about 150 yards, but this one traveled 2.38 miles. The NWS said it touched down near Maple Street and continued over Bose Avenue, causing significant tree damage.

“The (fifth) tornado lifted somewhere near Harvest Drive and touched down again about 1.25 miles ENE just west of Packard Road and continued across Carriage Lane before lifting again. This tornado caused significant tree damage with several hard and softwood trees uprooted or snapped at the trunk,” the NWS said.

Heavy damage was also surveyed in the western Massachusetts towns of Otis and Blandford, but meteorologists "did not see any evidence of a tornado in those locations" and determined the damage was from straight-line winds, the NWS said.

EF1s are on the lower end of tornado intensity, with a range of 86 to 110 mph.

The last time Massachusetts experienced five tornadoes in one day was in 2011 during the system that spurred the deadly Springfield Tornado.

Four tornado touchdowns have been confirmed from a severe thunderstorm that hit central Massachusetts on Saturday, the National Weather Service said Monday, sharing details about them as their investigation continues.

The tornadoes had winds faster than 86 mph — all four, in Paxton, Holden, Berlin and Stow, were rated as EF1, the weather service said. It announced the tornadoes in two sets of two on Monday, after initially announcing Saturday that radar had confirmed a tornado.

There was no tornado damage found in Otis and Blandford in western Massachusetts, which saw its own tornado warnings on Saturday.

The National Weather Service was still preparing information about how far and for how long the tornadoes traveled on the ground, and how wide their path was. The agency expected to be able to share that information Tuesday morning.

An NBC10 Boston drone flew over one area and saw what looked like a path of damaged trees.

National Weather Service Meteorologist Andy Nash explained what their survey team looks at when they arrive on scene to determine if there is a tornado: “I think everyone knows it twists and turns. So, if we see trees that lay across each other, the tops are twisted off, then we suspect it was a tornado.”

The clean-up was underway for two days in Holden. One homeowner described hearing the moment pieces of a tree came down on his house.

“It was a big thud, it really was big... I put my hands up. I thought everything was going to collapse," Dennis Landry said.

“I had two or three trees on my roof here. Another tree fell this way and fell on my neighbor’s house," he added.

In a nearby neighborhood, the Goodnows were also being hit.

“We couldn’t see out the windows and I went to shut the kitchen door and the wind just blew me back," Janna Goodnow said.

There were different types of damage. Goodnow’s yard had more than a half a dozen trees down. Some were toppled over with the roots ripping out huge sections of ground. But just across the yard, one tree was snapped off right at the base.

“It’s like a train. Everyone says that. It is. It hit the house so hard and this house is [from] 1820, so when it hit the house, you knew it was not good," Goodnow said.

Five tornadoes touched down in four towns in central Massachusetts during Saturday's storm, the National Weather Service has confirmed.

A team of field inspectors from the agency surveyed damage Monday and found that "brief" EF1 tornadoes landed in Holden, Paxton, Berlin and Stow. EF1 tornadoes have winds in the range of 86 to 110 miles per hour.

These are the first tornadoes confirmed in New England in 2025. Massachusetts averages two tornadoes a year. These are the most in the state since June 2011.

"There were 5 separate tornado touchdowns across these areas," the National Weather Service said in its final briefing Tuesday, noting that two were in Paxton.

The agency said the first twister was on Richards Avenue in Paxton at 4:02 p.m. and it lasted for a minute. A second tornado was confirmed on South Road at 4:06 p.m. that also lasted just one minute.

In Holden, the site of the first confirmed tornado on radar Saturday, the weather service said a tornado briefly touched down over Willow Brook Road at 4:08 p.m.

Trees uprooted in Holden

Several large trees in yards along South Road in Holden were pulled out of the ground by the storm. Some of them were hundreds of years old.

"It'll change the landscape forever here," said homeowner Janna Goodnow in Holden. "It's like a movie scene, you don't expect to see trees uprooted like that."

Don Jacobs said he got a tornado warning on his phone in Holden.

"The cellphone tells you this day and age to run to your basement, and of course I didn't move," said Jacobs, who had tree damage at his home. "Good news is it happens so fast that you don't have time to get scared."

"By the time we looked out of the window, we could see all of the leaves and branches going around in a circle, and then we heard a big thud," said Jacobs, talking about the huge tree that uprooted in his front lawn. "Ironically, as it so happens, we were about to have our lawn reseeded literally tomorrow, and we called to cancel that."

"You look at the density of all of the trees, and it's amazing that there isn't more house damage," said Holden resident Chris Quinn.

Holden is in Worcester County, 55 miles west of Boston.

A few minutes later, at 4:25 p.m. Saturday, a tornado touched down west of Barnes Hill Road in Berlin with an estimated peak wind of 104 miles per hour as it crossed Derby Road and West Street.

Tornado number five was reported in Stow at 4:30 p.m. and lasted about four minutes.

The National Weather Service team also surveyed storm damage Monday in Otis and Blandford in western Massachusetts but found no evidence of tornadoes there.

Mike Toole

Mike Toole is the managing editor for CBS Boston. He has worked in the WBZ-TV newsroom for more than 20 years. He previously wrote and produced news and sports at WABC-TV in New York.

A tornado occurred Saturday in central Massachusetts, as thunderstorms slammed the Northeast and led to thousands of Connecticut power outages, according to the National Weather Service.

The National Weather Service's Boston office said the tornado was confirmed by radar in Holden, a town of around 20,000 people that sits about 18 miles north of the Connecticut border.

The weather service said it needed to conduct a survey to determine the path length and width of the tornado and assign it a rating on the Enhanced Fujita Scale — the measurement researchers use to rate the severity of a tornado. The office said it was postponing the damage survey in the Massachusetts towns of Holden and Berlin and other locations until Monday due to inclement weather.

The tornado in Massachusetts came as thunderstorms swept across the region on Saturday, bringing heavy rain and high winds that brought down trees and limbs. Eversource, Connecticut's largest power company, reported more than 7,000 power outages at one point late Saturday afternoon.

Many of the outages were concentrated in western Connecticut, a trend that was also reflected in storm damage reports published by the National Weather Service.

The damage reports showed heavy winds buffeted the state Saturday from the shoreline north to the Massachusetts border and beyond. In Bantam, the weather service noted social media reports of hail at least an inch in diameter.

There were multiple reports of trees and wires down throughout the western half of the state.

In Salisbury, crews with the Eversource had to walk 2 miles to the location of a vehicle trapped behind wires brought down by trees and limbs, Eversource spokesperson Tricia Modifica said.

By the the time they got to the scene in the Taconic section of town, the driver had been freed, she said.

Staff writer Brigitte Ruthman contributed to this story.