Mystery?

[Lou Gentile]

There were poles that were snapped in half. However, Upton has rejected
the idea of a touch-down, so just two unconfirmed funnels, no twister.
Upton said they do not have the people to investigate, so they just sent
my friend out as a volunteer (he is a co-op and back-up for KBDR from
his position 3 miles north of the airport, and worked at the station
when it was live) but he is not being paid for this investigation. He
put a fair amount of work into this and found the twisted tree limbs,
snapped trees and poles, and of course a few trees that were completely
knocked over and were lying on the ground. I didn't ask him about poles
completely knocked over but I am not surprised.. He also found areas
with only one side of the street affected and talked to seven or eight
eye witnesses to the funnel which he had observed himself, northeast of
his Stratford location, moving SE, just before white-out conditions
developed with vs dropping to below 1/4SM in +TSGS FC SQ, 1/8 inch of
hail accumulating on the ground. The wind was coming from underneath the
tree branches as if it wanted to connect with the funnel aloft. There
appeared to be a wide swath of rotation before everything became
obscurred. He submitted his report to Upton. Upton is calling it
straight-line wind damage here in the Stratford/Milford area of CT. Can
straight line winds damage only one side of a street? Upton said BDR
Tower had 65 mph peak wind and since then they said 70 mph. I went over
all the ASOS BDR obs and found a peak wind from the north at 44KT at
2008.08.072231Z, when this storm hit. My friend went down there and
found no tree damage on the perimeter of the airport and no evidence of
damaging winds in that area. The anemometer is at the standard 30 ft.
AGL. The tower is higher and I figure they were estimating, especially
with the two different figures. But I was wrong on the possible tornado.
Take care Mike and TQ, Louie