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Tornado Confirmed Near Braddock Bay

( this video courtesy of Marybeth Iannolo )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1Ha2bmQQ5I

It was a tornado. That's what the National Weather Service has confirmed about a small twister that hit the Lake Ontario shoreline last week.

As tornadoes go, this one was pretty weak. It's characterized as an EF-Zero, which generally has wind speeds of about 65 miles an hour.  It happened last Friday night when thunderstorms were rolling through the area.

That created a water spout over Lake Ontario, according to National Weather Service Meteorologist David Zaff, who says the thunderstorms helped push this waterspout onto the shoreline in the Hilton area.

"As it moved ashore, the water spout moved ashore, we're going to classify it as a tornado, a rapidly spinning column of air, over the ground, it dropped several trees and damaged a few homes as it moved into Braddock Bay.”

There were no injuries reported. Zaff says water spouts aren't all that unusual over Lake Ontario, but he says we don't get too many tornadoes in this part of the state.  

Randy Gorbman is WXXI's director of news and public affairs. Randy manages the day-to-day operations of WXXI News on radio, television, and online.