EF1 tornado touches down in upstate New York town. What we know now

The National Weather Service confirmed Wednesday that a tornado touched down earlier this week in the Steuben County town of Wayland.

The twister knocked down trees, snapped tree trunks and dropped large branches on roofs and other property Monday night.

A National Weather Service storm survey team that traveled to Wayland on Wednesday to assess damages said the EF1 tornado touched down at 7:33 p.m., starting around Buffalo Street just to the west-northwest of Wayland.

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Tornado traveled toward south side of Wayland, packing 90-mph winds

The Weather Service said the tornado cut a narrow 150-yard path east-southeast, traveling nearly 2 miles through the south side of Wayland itself, with 90-mph wind gusts uprooting trees and knocking down large branches.

The Weather Service survey team noted two large softwood trees with clean trunk snaps, as well as damaged roofs at residences, collapsed fences, a crushed backyard swimming pool and a vehicle impaled by a large branch.

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The survey team also heard an eyewitness account of another vehicle being moved several inches sideways on the roadway.

The Weather Service said the tornado dissipated about a half mile southeast of the center of Wayland at 7:38 p.m.

The Weather Service said there were no reports of injuries.

Steuben officials: Tornado damage followed specific path

Steuben County Emergency Management officials notified the Weather Service that the storm appeared to have followed a specific path, a "key indicator to us to go out and (do a) survey," said Robert Deal, a Binghamton-based National Weather Service meteorologist.

“From radar on that particular night we could see there was a little bit of rotation but the radar beam was shooting actually too high to see a specific tornado. So we couldn’t actually see a tornado on the ground on radar," Deal said.

Deal said the storm survey team documented “convergent” tree damage — which is trees falling on top of each other rather than away from each other.

“That's a classic signal for us to know that it was a tornado and not straight line winds,” Deal said.

There was no immediate assessment on the cost of damages.

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