Tornado warning issued Saturday
By Debra Walsh
Staff Writer
Federal weather officials were in Patten on Monday to determine whether a tornado occurred in that area over the weekend, according to the National Weather Service in Caribou.
Contributed photos/Deb Bivighouse
Colton Bivighouse stands just outside his family’s Patten cattle pasture. There was a 15-foot-wide swath of trees leveled to the ground by the tornado-like storm. Some of these trees were sizable, roughly 20-inches in diameter. “Our cows had gathered together not even 10 feet away from where the trees went down and narrowly escaped injury,” said Deb Bivighouse.
A tornado warning was issued over the weekend for the southern Aroostook region with predictions of thunderstorms, hail and high winds. However, the property damage observed in the area of the Happy Corner Road and Frenchville roads of Patten indicated that “straight-line winds” were the cause, according to Tony Mignone, a meteorologist with the NWS in Caribou.
No injuries were reported, according to Patten Town Manager Terri Conklin.
Although she was away over the weekend, Conklin said that she has observed uprooted trees as she was surveying the damage earlier this week.
Published reports compared the storm to the tornado that took Dorothy and her little dog, Toto, to the fictional Land of Oz. The high winds reportedly made two pigs and a dog airborne, and ruined a crop of pumpkins. 
Contributed photos/Deb Bivighouse
Robert Mycroft's barn roof was partially blown off in the severe storm Saturday. The Happy Corner Road resident and his son were stacking hay in the loft when the storm hit, but were able to scramble down the ladder and take shelter in the far corner of the barn.
The region was without power for more than two hours, according to published reports.
The wind damage occurred shortly after 4 p.m. on Saturday when hundreds of trees were blown over and a barn lost part of its roof, according to the NWS website.
“Some of the trees landed on homes and power lines,” according to the storm survey report. “Trees were both uprooted and snapped with both hardwood and softwood trees affected.”
The trees’ sizes ranged from several inches in diameter to about 30 inches, the report said.
Wind speeds were estimated to have reached between 80 and 90 miles per hour, causing tree damage in a northwest to southwest direction. The area of damage measured about five miles long with an average width of two miles.
Although weather officials were able to ascertain that a tornado did not occur in the Patten area, the NWS Website said that those “straight-line winds” can result in as much damage as an EF0 or EF1, or low-grade, tornado.
The National Weather Service issued a total of 14 severe thunderstorm warnings on Saturday and three tornado warnings, including those issued for Calais and northwest of Grand Lake, located south of Houlton.
