National Weather Service Assesses Damage in Worcester County

(NECN: Tom Langford, Ashburnham, Mass.) - Worcester County in Massachusetts was the hardest hit when storms rolled through the Bay State on Monday.

"I saw the dark clouds and what appeared to be a funnel cloud."

Todd Parsons, a sergeant with the Ashburnham police department, is one of dozens of people who saw a funnel cloud last night over north-central Massachusetts.

He says, at the time, the sky looked strange.

"Some areas appeared like it was after dusk, other areas appeared like it was daytime."

Reports like that... and this radar image that shows the signatures of a tornado... lead experts from the National Weather Service to tour the area, looking for evidence of a tornado touchdown.

"I worked in Kansas and I saw a lot out there and this resembled a storm you would see out there."

However -- on the ground -- no tornado damage was visible.

"At this point, we are saying no tornado occurred yesterday. We saw a lot of minor, sporadic damage. But nothing to suggest a tornado path."

It appears winds in the atmosphere were spinning, but that spinning never made it down to the ground.
A bit surprising for this group of meteorologists, who say if a tornado is going to happen in New England, it is more likely to happen here.

"We tend to get a lot of tornadoes in central Massachusetts. We don't know why that is. It could be because of the terrain. Tornadoes can spin up because of terrain effects, local effects."

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