| 1995 Great Barrington tornado | |
| Date: | May 29, 1995 |
| Time: | 10 minutes |
| Rating: | F4 tornado |
| Damages: | $24 million (1995 USD) |
| Casualties: | 3 |
| Area affected: | Berkshire County, Massachusetts |
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The 1995 Great Barrington tornado (also known as the Memorial Day Tornado of 1995) was an F4 tornado that occurred in the western Massachusetts town of Great Barrington.
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Around 3:30 in the afternoon on May 29, 1995, a thunderstorm developed a little northwest of Binghamton, New York. Over the next few hours the storm moved east until it hit favorable weather for thunderstorms coming up from the south in the Hudson River Valley. As a result of this, the air became very unstable. The storm quickly intensified and a tornado eventually touched down in Columbia County at 6:40. The tornado lifted off the ground twenty minutes later and the storm remained weak until it reached the area of Great Barrington, Massachusetts and intensified again, dropping another tornado.[1]
The tornado itself touched down around 7:06 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts near the Walter J. Koladza Airport. The tornado went for a length of seven miles and eventually ended in the town of Monterey. The storm itself killed three people and caused twenty five million dollars worth of damage. The three people who were killed were two students and a staff member at the private Eagleton School as they were returning to the campus in Great Barrington.[2] Near the town line with Monterey, their car was lifted off of Route 23, and tossed 1,000 feet into a wooded area.[2] Over one hundred homes and businesses were either damaged or destroyed, including the grandstand at the Great Barrington Fairgrounds.[3] Additionally, twenty-four people (or twenty-seven according to a different source[4]) were injured.[5] Winds from the F4 tornado were estimated to be between 158 and 260 miles per hour, making it one of the strongest tornadoes on record in the Northeast.