A tornado briefly touched down in Litchfield, Thomaston, the Terryville section of Plymouth and Bristol Wednesday afternoon, the National Weather Service said.

The tornado touched down in East Litchfield around Litchfield Road, in Thomaston near D. Welter Way, in Terryville near North Street and in Bristol near Blakeslee and High streets.

As of 9:30 a.m. Friday Connecticut Light & Power was reporting 6,278 customers were still without power, including 3,985 customers in East Hampton.

Tree tops were twisted off and several trees were uprooted. Damage from straight line winds was also detected in the area by NWS weather experts.

In Bristol, the tornado’s path was one and a half miles long and about 25 yards wide. Wind gusts were about 90 mph. The paths in the other three towns were shorter.

But not all of the damage left by a powerful storm — with high winds, hail, rain and lightning — that tore through Connecticut late Wednesday was a result of a tornado.

The weather service determined that damage in southwestern Connecticut and eastern Long Island was not caused by a tornado but was consistent with "straight line winds."

That determination was made after reviewing radar images and talking to local officials in Westport and in eastern Suffolk County, New York.

The findings are preliminary and could change, the NWS said.

Bristol Mayor Art Ward said the town is cleaning up the fallen trees and wires in town. Numerous trees in Rockwell Park came down, were split open or were sheared off during the storm, he said.

A business in the North Main Street business district lost its entire roof, while other businesses had damaged roofs, he said. Blakeslee Street is covered in fallen trees and wires, he said.

"Blakeslee Street is totally devastated, totally impassable," Ward said.

"We lost a lot of trees, probably a good 20 or so were snapped off, uprooted or twisted in half. I’ve never seen so much tree damage there," Parks Superintendent Ed Swicklas said late Thursday afternoon. "But the storm missed our major buildings and equipment."

Rockwell had just undergone a multimillion-dollar renovation, but virtually none of the new paths or decorative lights and benches was damaged. Falling trees broke the outfield fence at Muzzy Field and ripped down the netting above the grandstand, but Swicklas predicts that city workers will have Muzzy in shape for a game today. (Friday)

Workers on Thursday put up tape to keep visitors away from a few areas with dangling tree limbs, but otherwise Rockwell was OK, Swicklas said.

"The park is open — the pool, the skate park are all open," Swicklas said.

Page Park and the park along Memorial Boulevard also sustained tree damage, and parks workers spent the day clearing debris. Swicklas predicted the cleanup will continue into next week or later.

Ward said 34,000 CL&P customers were without power Wednesday, but that the number was down to 8,000 by Thursday morning.

Lake Compounce lost power overnight but had it restored by 11:30 a.m. today, said Sara Webb, director of marketing. Most of the rides were functioning Thursday, but many were being tested for safety, she said.

Close to 55,000 Connecticut Light and Power customers were without power at the height of Wednesday’s storms, but the number of outages had dropped to 12,133 by 4 p.m.

In nearby Plainville, officials were forced to close Paderewski Park because of storm damage. Trees were toppled over, some were sheared off, other were left leaning precariously, said Town Manager Robert Lee.

"We just don’t think it’s safe for people to go there," he said.

Four homes in town were damaged by fallen trees, one of them is no longer habitable, he said. Clean up in Plainville will take between two and three weeks, Lee said.

"We at Howard K Hill Funeral Services http://www.hkhfuneralservices.com/ love our community and provide timely information to keep you all educated and motivated to help each other. We hope you enjoy our blog posts and as always "We’re Honored to Server You".

Source: ctnow