NH Tornado

[RoySwkr]

The windstorm that swept NH on July 24, killing one person and destroying houses and cars, has been officially declared a tornado.

Its swath 50 miles long and half a mile wide blew down a lot of trees but missed major hiking areas. The only trails I've heard with damage reports were Green Mtn in Effingham, but it passed right over Whiteface in Wolfeboro and within a few miles of Trask Hill, Copple Crown, and Devils Den so I'm sure there will be more.

 

[bikehikeskifish]

Today's Union Leader had an 8-page special section on this phenomenon. The photos were pretty amazing. One, from a plane, caused my 5 yro son to say "Is that a trail, Daddy?"

Tim

 

[Klutz]

Oh, yeah, I was trying to get home from Concord to Barrington after the fact about 3:30pm and got re-routed three times that day! I ended up going the looonnng way home that day. My usual route is pretty much all the way down Rte 4, right by where that happened. I ended up going waaayy over towards Alton Bay to get home, making my usual 50min commute to an hour and a half..... It was crazy.

I was saddened to hear that woman was killed. That area got cleaned up pretty fast too. It's not all cleaned up, but the next day I was able to take that route to work.

 

[Undershaft]

The windstorm that swept NH on July 24, killing one person and destroying houses and cars, has been officially declared a tornado.

Its swath 50 miles long and half a mile wide blew down a lot of trees but missed major hiking areas. The only trails I've heard with damage reports were Green Mtn in Effingham, but it passed right over Whiteface in Wolfeboro and within a few miles of Trask Hill, Copple Crown, and Devils Den so I'm sure there will be more.

Where exactly is "Trask Hill"? I've never heard of it, but I'd like to know more about it. My last name is Trask and I'm always surprised and amused when the name pops up. Trask is not a terribly common surname.

 

[Kevin Rooney]

Last week I rode my bike across Iowa, and one day passed thru an area hit by a "small" tornado the night before. Beside the road was the remains of a steel silo used to store corn, and it was lying, twisted, beside the road. It was so crumpled it looked like a giant's hand hand squeezed it like so much tin foil. It had been flung about half a mile.

All of could think of was some of those scenes in "Twister". Some of those special effects are no exaggeration.

 

[RoySwkr]

Where exactly is "Trask Hill"?

Trask Hill in Wolfeboro was apparently not affected by the tornado, it is in an upscale subdivision at the end of Upper Trask Hill Road. If the Trasks want to "move up", #59 which may include the actual summit is for sale for $699,000

Trask Mtn is on the ME p1k list,
http://peaklist.org/USlists/Maine1000.html
wait a couple weeks and bb1 will have a report

If you want to know about everything Trask or any other name, search the
Board of Geographic Names database at:
http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic/

 

[Undershaft]

Trask Hill in Wolfeboro was apparently not affected by the tornado, it is in an upscale subdivision at the end of Upper Trask Hill Road. If the Trasks want to "move up", #59 which may include the actual summit is for sale for $699,000

Rats! I'm $698,998 dollars short.

Thanks for the info. The USGS link is pretty cool. It turns out there are a fair number of places with the name Trask attached in diverse areas of the country. I was only familiar with two of them. Both named after the rich Trasks from the other side of town.

 

[kltilton]

For anyone interested in seing the path of the tornado in Google Earth, here is a link to the UNH GRANIT website.

http://www.granit.unh.edu/Calendar/ViewEvent?EVENT_ID=889&NAV=NO

 

[Amicus]

The only trails I've heard with damage reports were Green Mtn in Effingham. . . .

I hiked those trails today for the first time since the Tornado. Dearborn and High Watch, which nearly all hikers use (especially the latter), are fine. Libby Tr., up the SW ridge, was hit hard, between 1,000-1,150 feet. A sign at the bottom told me that the Trail was closed on account of dangerous conditions from tornado damage. That warning came too late for me, but the Trail is already passable and I detected no danger. A few photos here.