By Frank D. Roylance , frank.roylance@baltsun.com|June 23, 2009
The small tornado that swept across southeastern Baltimore County on Saturday afternoon damaged 27 homes in the Essex area, but only one sustained major damage, the Baltimore County Office of Emergency Management said Monday. There were no immediate estimates of damages.
The twister was one of two that formed over Baltimore and Harford counties as a line of thunderstorms approached the Chesapeake Bay soon after 3 p.m. A third storm over Anne Arundel County spawned a waterspout that crossed the bay and passed just north of Love Point on Kent Island.
"It was a pretty hot and heavy period of active weather in a very small area," said Steven M. Zubrick, science and operations officer for the National Weather Service's forecast office in Sterling, Va. "The whole atmosphere was real juiced ... almost tropical in nature."
The weather service issued a tornado watch for the area at 3:05 p.m. The watch was changed to a warning for Harford County at 3:34 p.m., followed by another for Essex at 3:46 p.m.
The Harford County tornado was rated an EF-0, the weakest on the enhanced Fujita scale, with peak winds of about 70 mph. The storm cut a three-mile path about 100 yards wide. About a dozen trees were uprooted in between Hollingsworth and Ring Factory roads before the storm dissipated at 3:38 p.m., according to a weather service survey.
The Essex twister crossed five miles of the county. It first touched down at 3:44 p.m., toppling a large tree that severely damaged one home, and caused lesser damage to roofing and siding in the area of Woodlynn Road, and Lance, Kinwat and Tibsen avenues.
After rising off the ground for a time, the funnel intensified, touched down again and toppled dozens of large trees on Island View Road at Balliston Point.
