Nat’l Weather Service Says Recent Storm “Worst of 2020″

The Oct. 7 storm that ripped through Berkshire County along with the rest of western New England and parts of New York last week was one of the worst storms in recent memory and was just named "one of the strongest and most severe weather events of 2020" by the National Weather Service.

The storm, called a high-end severe weather event by forecasters, left a path of destruction 320 miles long knocking out power to hundreds of thousands and even took the life of a local Berkshire County man. In addition to rain and hail, wind gusts over 75 miles per hour downing trees and power lines accounted for much of the damage. At one point during the storm, more than 211,000 households in Massachusetts were left without power.

Eversource electric had over 500 repair crews out working to restore electricity to homes and businesses and even called in support from New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Canada.

Basically, we had a line of heavy showers and thunderstorms cross the region, and they produced widespread 50- to 75-mile-per-hour wind gusts, resulting in approximately 300,000 power outages. It was quick-hitting, but obviously knocked out power to a lot of people.

Hayden Frank,

National Weather Service’s Boston office via MassLive

The storm has been classified as a serial derecho, a term that means a widespread, long-lived wind storm that causes rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Forecasters credit an intense low-pressure storm system that moved rapidly eastward from Ontario, Canada into northern New England as the cause of the severe weather.