The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for Rochester and nearby towns at 2:44 p.m. Saturday, putting the alert in effect until 3:15 p.m. The warning covered Rochester, Chili, Le Roy, Byron, Caledonia, Scottsville, Churchville, Riga, Bergen and Elba as a severe storm moved through Monroe County.
The timing mattered because the warning landed in the middle of a rough weather day that had already forced cancellations and knocked out power. By 3 p.m., RG&E said more than 400 homes were without electricity in Monroe County, while a flash flood warning remained in place for Rochester and surrounding communities until 7 p.m.
The storm system also had a defined core. The National Weather Service said the severe thunderstorm was capable of producing a tornado in the Town of Byron and was about seven miles northeast of Batavia, moving east at about 35 mph. That left a narrower, more immediate question for people under the Rochester warning: whether the danger was only radar-driven rotation or whether a tornado had actually formed.
The broader day had already shown how disruptive the weather was. The Rochester Pride Festival was canceled, the Hilton Kiddie Parade was canceled and the village’s carnival was postponed. Earlier in the day, a tornado warning in the Canandaigua area had already ended at 1:45 p.m., underscoring how quickly the severe weather had been shifting across the region before the Rochester alert was issued.
For residents in Rochester and the surrounding towns, the immediate answer was simple: stay alert until 3:15 p.m. The deeper answer is still the one that matters most after the warning expires — whether the storm ever dropped a tornado, or whether the warning was the right call based on a system that was rotating hard enough to justify it.
