Michael Harger This is a golf course: tornado damage at Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, N.J.Updated 12:33 p.m. | They looked at radar maps. They studied tree-fall patterns. They tallied eyewitness accounts.
Finally, local weather officials reached a decision: tornado.
Packing 100-mile-an-hour winds, it tore across a park, cemetery, street and golf course in Paramus, N.J., on Monday afternoon.
It uprooted dozens of trees but did little other property damage and caused no injuries.
Locals suspected a tornado immediately, but the National Weather Service took more than a day to confirm.
Tornadoes are mostly a warm-weather thing, but they do occur in October and even November.
In New York City, October tornadoes have struck Queens (1985) and Staten Island (1995 and 2003).
One place you're safe â€" so far â€" is Manhattan.
A tornado has not been recorded in Manhattan, in any month, since the Weather Service started keeping records.
Here's what else you need to know for Thursday.
WEATHER
Here comes rain â€" plenty, through Friday night at least, with totals over an inch and a half likely. Raw, too - windy with a high of just 62 today.
Minor coastal flooding and major umbrella action are expected.
No tornadoes, though.
COMMUTE
Subways: . Click for latest status.
Rails: Click for L.I.R.R., Metro-North or New Jersey Transit status.
Roads: Click for traffic map or radio report on the 1s.
Alternate-side parking is in effect all week.
Air Travel: There have been weather-related delays today. Click for latest status or check with your airline.
COMING UP TODAY
- Two former associates of John C. Liu, the failed mayoral candidate, are sentenced in a fund-raising scheme.
- Bill de Blasio is endorsed by women's rights groups.
- Joseph J. Lhota meets with the Partnership for New York City and the Orthodox Jewish group Agudath Israel of America.
- Register to vote. Tomorrow is the deadline for the November election. Click to register online. Or go to one of these places.
- A “participatory budgeting†session seeks Park Slopers' input on what to do with $1 million from the City Council. Old First Reformed Church, 6:30 p.m. [Free]
- The authors of “NYC 2040: Housing the Next One Million New Yorkers†propose pockets of superdense development, at Van Alen Books on West 22nd Street. 7 p.m. [Free]
- “Movement†is the theme of the latest MoMA Art Lab, the Museum of Modern Art's programming for children, opening today.
- Gay Talese submits to an hourlong interview at N.Y.U.'s journalism school. 7 p.m. [Free]
- Comic Con gets under way at the Javits Center with talks on comics' role in education. (Plus people in costumes.)
- For more events, see The New York Times Arts & Entertainment guide.
IN THE NEWS
- A hospital created a job for Mr. de Blasio's wife in 2005, when he was a councilman who helped get the hospital millions in aid. [New York Times]
- Paul McCartney played a surprise show at a Queens high school. The students knew who he was. [New York Times]
- Searchers are combing the transit system for a 14-year-old, mute, train-obsessed autistic boy who vanished on Friday. [CBS New York]
- Upgraded charges against a detective accused in last week's motorcycle attack on an S.U.V. [New York Times]
- A Brooklyn man needed 30 stitches to his face after a toilet exploded in his apartment. [Daily News]
- Dan Sandler, the ranting Bad Elmo of Times Square, drew a one-year sentence for trying to extort $2 million from the Girl Scouts. [New York Times]
- Public-school kindergarteners are getting training on standardized tests. [Daily News]
- Sliding before-and-after satellite images of a changing city, including Barclays Center and the Williamsburg waterfront. [Point2Homes, via Gothamist]
- Four more years for Joe Girardi as Yankees manager. [New York Times]
AND FINALLY…
This just in: we made a mistake â€" 136 years ago.
It was in a Jan. 9, 1877 article about a police officer shot by a saloon burglar.
The Times called him Officer McDonnell.
His name was McDowell.
The error came to light when we researched a correction to a recent article about the history of the New York Yankees logo.
The record is now set straight.
Joseph Burgess and Richard Morgan contributed reporting.
New York Today is a morning roundup that stays live from 6 a.m. till about noon.
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