EF0 Tornado Confirmed in NE Philly

[Rainshadow]

I remember just one occasion when Mt. Holly used a Special Weather Statement mentioning the possibility of a tornado. It was back in May 2002 when a Supercell was moving out of Baltimore and onto the Chesapeake Bay. I was listening to my NOAA Weather Radio when an SPS came up and said "Tornadic thunderstorm heading toward Cecil County". About ten minutes later, a Tornado Warning went up for Cecil County, mentioning that this was "a life-threatening storm". 19 minutes later, a pair of upper-echelon F-1's touched down simultaneously near Earleville and caused damage to numerous structures. In this rare case, the certainty of a tornado was fairly high for around here, so that is why the SPS was used mentioning the possibility of one. I believe Tony Gigi was the one who issued this particular warning, so it was good foresight on his part.

Thank-you for your kind words. There might have been a tornado warning in effect in Sterling's CWA when I issued the SPS for it. In Mike's case the storm in question was within our CWA. Here's some info on that tornado:

A supercell thunderstorm produced two tornadoes in southern Cecil County and hail as large as golf balls. Damage was estimated at $170,000. No injuries were reported. Both tornadoes were estimated at F1 on the Fujita Scale with maximum winds near the high end of the F1 scale, around 110 mph. About 800 persons lost power. All power was restored by the 14th. Walnut to golf ball size hail fell from Crystal City east through Scotchmans Glen. A funnel cloud formed over Crystal Beach and one tornado touched down just to the west of Maryland State Route 282 and east of White Crystal Beach. It quickly intensified to F1. A barn was destroyed near Crystal Beach Road. A couple of homes had siding and shingles ripped from them. From there the tornado weakened to F0, but still tore down many trees and snapped utility poles. The tornado intensified again to F1 as it crossed Glebe Road. A 100 to 200 foot barn exploded; its 100 year old house was damaged. Several homes were damaged along Glebe Road. In total, the tornado damaged seven homes and destroyed several outbuildings and barns. The tornado lifted just before it reached the Bohemia River. Its path length was 4.0 miles and its maximum path width was about 80 yards. A second tornado touched farther downstream on the Bohemia River just southeast of Two Rivers. The tornado moved northeast and lifted near Hack Point. The worst damage occurred at the marina on the Bohemia River. Fifty boats were damaged. One sail boat sank, others were toppled and had their canvas sails shredded. Two trees fell on one home near the marina. The rest of the tornado wind damage was mainly inflicted on large trees which were knocked down. The tornado's path length was about 1.5 miles and its maximum path width was about 100 yards. While the tornado lifted, the supercell thunderstorm continued to produce damaging wind gusts farther east in Cecil County. In Chesapeake City, wires were knocked down on Maryland State Route 213 and several large trees were also knocked down.

[Eskimo Joe]

Cool video shown on TWC of this little guy, as it went through.

You mean those security-cam shots? Yeah, pretty cool-- although I'm not sure I would have guessed it was a tornado.

P.S. You going to the conference?

Link to the video?