Cuomo: Tornado in central NY part of "a pattern of extreme weather"

Gov. Andrew Cuomo today surveyed the damage from a tornado in Madison County outside Syracuse that led to four deaths, including a four-month-old baby, and said it's another example of "a pattern of extreme weather that is different."

Cuomo said New York has had 11 federally declared disasters in his 3 ½ years as governor.

"There is a pattern of extreme weather that is different," Cuomo said. "We’re seeing things that we’ve never seen. We’re seeing floods where homes that have been dry for 100 years have been hit with floods and get totally destroyed."

The Madison County Sheriff's Department identified the four-month-old as Paris M. Newman. Her mother also died, Kimberly M. Hillard, 35, in a house on Goff Road in the town of Smithfield.

The other deceased are Arnie D. Allen, 53, and Virginia D. Warner, 70.

"The winds were so high there that one of the homes was lifted off the foundation and carried approximately 150 yards and came down on another home," Madison County Sheriff Allen Riley said at a news briefing with Cuomo.

Cuomo has spoken regularly about his belief that climate change is real, particularly after New York endured tropical storms Irene and Lee that ravaged parts of upstate in 2011 and then Superstorm Sandy in 2012 that hit New York City and its suburbs. He's started a preparedness program for New Yorkers.

"We don’t get tornadoes in New York. Anyone will tell you that," Cuomo said. "Well, we do now, and this new normal of extreme weather is a challenge for government, it’s a challenge for first responders and it’s a challenge for every citizen in this state."

New York has about a dozen or so tornadoes a year, according to the National Weather Service. New York had nine reported tornadoes last year and 14 in 2002.

(AP Photo)