Not that I'm an expert...

[KayakDan]

We were coming south on 93 between Manch & Concord when that storm came through about 6:20PM. We were pulling our boat back from Winnie.
Before we got into the worst of it I mentioned to Mrs KD that tornadoes don't happen very often around here,but that sure looks like the makings of one. Who knew?
The wind hit us really hard,and I thought the boat was going to pull us off the road. Then the hail started,stopped,then we got slammed with big hailstones.I expecterd the windshield to pop any time. And all the time this was going on we could see blue sky just to the East.
We never saw the funnel form,but it was scary enough.

 

[jjmcgo]

Smitty77; Grouseking

Smitty77: From WWLP.com: The May 29, 1995, Great Barrington tornado will go down in history as one of Western Massachusetts' strongest and most destructive storms.
According to National Weather Service reports, a thunderstorm developed over Central New York (just northwest of Binghamton) around 3:30pm on May 29, 1995. This is the storm that would eventually produce the Great Barrington Tornado. The first tornado that this storm would produce developed over the Hudson Valley of New York at around 6:40pm. That tornado would dissipate for a short period of time, only to redevelop just east of the Massachusetts border. This is the tornado that would rip through Great Barrington. In fact, the winds of this tornado would rip apart buildings on the Great Barrington Fairgrounds and toppled trees in the surrounding woods. 27 people were injured and 3 killed as a result of the storm.
The whole side of the cliff above the racetrack was laid bare. It's just beginning to fill in.
Grouseking: What you said is very interesting. I was working at the east-facing Winnipeg racetrack in 1976 when a wide gray wall of swirling wind and dirt moved in on us from the south. It ripped roofs off houses and barns and knocked very heavy lights on the roof of the grandstand onto the apron below. Everything was knocked down in a south-to-north direction.
What was very interesting was that two horses that had been racing against each other (in full fields) twice before were in the race prior to the tornado. The man clocking the horses gave me the time, about two seconds slower for six furlongs than their previous two races. He said he wondered why they ran so slow and guessed they were probably tired. It was in the middle of that conversation that we saw the tornado and ran from the suspended press box down under the concrete grandstand. Windows were breaking on the south wall as we ran. The horses apparently ran slow because of a sudden change in atmospheric pressure.

 

[LittleBear]

Although they never officially called it a "tornado" there was a storm that hit the Stratham area of NH back in the '90's (might have been the
80's, I'm not sure) that collapsed the pavillion at Stratham Hill, killing a couple of people (everyone had gathered under the pavillion for shelter during the storm). It also took down a whole lot of trees nearby - looked like a big axe had come down and chopped off the tops of aa huge swathe of trees leaving only 6 feet still standing. My parents lived in Greenland (just down the road) at the time and they reported hearing an incredible roaring just about the time of the incident. IIRC, they ended up calling it a "microburst" but folks from the area who witnessed the event said they saw a funnel cloud.

 

[grouseking]

Grouseking: What you said is very interesting. I was working at the east-facing Winnipeg racetrack in 1976 when a wide gray wall of swirling wind and dirt moved in on us from the south. It ripped roofs off houses and barns and knocked very heavy lights on the roof of the grandstand onto the apron below. Everything was knocked down in a south-to-north direction.
What was very interesting was that two horses that had been racing against each other (in full fields) twice before were in the race prior to the tornado. The man clocking the horses gave me the time, about two seconds slower for six furlongs than their previous two races. He said he wondered why they ran so slow and guessed they were probably tired. It was in the middle of that conversation that we saw the tornado and ran from the suspended press box down under the concrete grandstand. Windows were breaking on the south wall as we ran. The horses apparently ran slow because of a sudden change in atmospheric pressure.

I realize this thread has left the hiking realm, but I'm curious. The damage was in a straight line north-south....but how was the debris tossed? Had everything fallen in a row (or like a straight line...as in straight line wind damage) or was it strewn about all over?

Windows were breaking on the south side of the building because of the sudeen change in atmospheric pressure...same reason the horses were running slow.

grouseking

 

[jjmcgo]

Not like dominoes

but more like a curved rose trellis-type pattern. Heavy stuff fell just north of origin. Lighter stuff fanned out. Roofs ripped off fell north and other roofs were lifted on the south side and peeled back but there never was a funnel cloud, unless we were in the center of it. Siding on townhouses under construction across the highway was stripped and roofs lifted. It was at least 400 yards wide as it approached, never saw the western edge, it was behind the grandstand. I didn't see outer-edge rotation like a twister. It was weird coming in because you could see dirt being lifted while dirt was falling from about 60 feet up.
The land over which it ran was totally flat prairie. Happened about 3 p.m. on a clear, warm August afternoon.

 

[sardog1]

A few years ago a dust-devil hit Lebanon, ME. It ripped a roof off a store and pretty much destroyed the place.

And unfortunately killed a guy inside. I've stood alongside a couple smaller dust devils in the Midwest; the noise was amazing for such a small phenomenon.

And I've also spent many dozens of nights huddled in a basement in MN, watching that famously green sky and waiting for Dorothy and Toto to come sailing by. My sister survived a direct hit once; a guy in an adjoining apartment watched the wall he was huddled against fly away to Never-Never Land.