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MECHANICVILLE — Upon moving to Albany in 2008, meteorologist Ross Lazear was quickly introduced to one of the Capital Region’s most infamous weather outbreaks: the Mechanicville tornado of May 31, 1998.
“It didn’t take long for me to hear people talking about it because it was such an anomalous event,” Lazear said.
The Mechanicville twister lasted about 30 minutes and resulted in 68 injuries. While traveling through densely populated pockets of Mechanicville, Stillwater and Schaghticoke, it reached F3 magnitude levels, the second-highest classification on the since-retired Fujita scale.
It eventually died in Shaftsbury, Vermont.
To date, the last comparably-sized vortex formed in Duanesburg nine years ago, lasting about 20 minutes and traversing seven rural miles of Schenectady County and Albany County. There were no injuries.
“Whereas tornadoes that go through less populated areas, they might be fascinating meteorologically but they don’t necessarily get as much public attention,” Lazear said.
More than 30 other tornadoes — including several F3s — had popped up across the northeast from May 31, 1998 to the wee hours of the next day. In the Mechanicville area, two other F2s were recorded in Rensselaer County at the time.
The last time there were multiple tornadoes at once was in summer of 2020, according to the National Weather Service in Albany.
“Since then, there have been days where there are multiple F0s or multiple F1s, but nothing with those sort of higher end ones,” said NWS meteorologist Eric Picard.
The 1998 outbreak was part of a deadly low pressure system, in which cold air from Canada collided with moist, warm air across the northern United States.
Part of what fueled the Mechanicville tornado, in particular, were terrain-channeled wind movements from the Mohawk and Hudson valleys, according to a joint UAlbany and Pennsylvania State University study released in 2021. Researchers, including Lazear, used existing data to simulate how geographic conditions lended to the storm’s rare strength.
The secondmost notable tornado in modern Mechanicville history occurred in 1916. The lower intensity storm dropped down around Hudson View Cemetery, and damaged a number of structures while moving northward into Stillwater.
While not common in the Capital Region, at least one tornado has landed down in New York since 1952. The most recent influx was in 2011 when 23 tornadoes occurred in one year.
One of the largest recorded tornadoes in state history ripped through Schoharie County on July 10, 1989. In the Cobleskill area, it reached F4 levels. Damages numbered $20 million, about $50 million less than the Mechanicville tornado.
Tyler A. McNeil can be reached at 518-395-3047 or [email protected]. Follow him on Facebook at Tyler A. McNeil, Daily Gazette or Twitter @TylerAMcNeil.
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