GRAY (NEWS CENTER Maine) -- An EF-1 tornado tracked 36 miles through New Hampshire on May 4, but it took the National Weather Service in Gray 10 days to confirm.
The track of the storm, equivalent to the drive from Portland to Lewiston, was in a sparsely populated area of western New Hampshire. The storm ripped through seven towns around 9:30 p.m. that Friday night, toppling trees and knocking out power.
Poor radar coverage is to blame for the lack of a tornado warning. This part of New Hampshire is nearly 100 miles from the weather service radars in Gray, Maine and Taunton, Massachusetts.
John Jensenius, Warning Coordination Meteorologist at the Gray office, which covers all of New Hampshire, traveled to the damage areas Monday and made the confirmation the damage patterns are consistent with a tornado.
Residents initially believed the damage was from straight-line wind gusts, or a microburst.
This is one of the longest track tornadoes recorded in northern New England. The longest on record was also in New Hampshire, 52 miles in July 2008.