Tornado

A trained weather spotter reported a funnel cloud sighting in Roland Park on Saturday afternoon, while severe wind damage occurred in Harford County as storms passed through the region, according to the National Weather Service. The funnel cloud sighting was reported at 4:24 p.m. along Lake Avenue near Roland Avenue. No tornado has been confirmed, and the weather service has not received any reports of damage that appeared to have been caused by a tornado, said Brian Lasorsa, a meteorologist in the weather service's Baltimore/Washington forecast office.

A trained weather spotter reported a funnel cloud sighting in Roland Park on Saturday afternoon, while severe wind damage occurred in Harford County as storms passed through the region, according to the National Weather Service. The funnel cloud sighting was reported at 4:24 p.m. along Lake Avenue near Roland Avenue. No tornado has been confirmed, and the weather service has not received any reports of damage that appeared to have been caused by a tornado, said Brian Lasorsa, a meteorologist in the weather service's Baltimore/Washington forecast office.

The tornado-like storm that whipped through Northeast Baltimore Wednesday morning stripped away roofs, windows and even roofs, leaving apartments as open as a child's dollhouse. Residents awoke to find cars jumbled in a heap, furniture scattered across lawns and wooden roofs that had sailed hundreds of feet away — in some cases, across Northern Parkway. How does a tornado, essentially a whirling column of air, create enough force to tug a roof off a building and send it hurtling like a hockey puck?

In the wake of the deadly bombings in Boston and the fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, the Maryland State Board of Education on Tuesday approved new emergency planning guidelines meant to help local school systems better prepare for disaster. "It's very timely that we're here today, given the events that occurred last week," said Chuck Buckler, executive director of the student services and strategic planning branch of the Maryland State Department of Education. The 218-page document updates safety guidelines developed a decade ago and emphasizes the creation of individualized plans that address multiple hazards, from school shootings to tornadoes.

Storms with winds reported at or near 80 mph blew through the area between 1:30 and 2 a.m. causing damage and electricity outages. WBAL-TV was reporting that the National Weather Service was working to confirm reports of a possible tornado in the 2200 block of Fleetwood Ave.

As part of Maryland Severe Storms Awareness Week, a statewide tornado drill is taking place Wednesday at 9:45 a.m . The alert will be issued over NOAA weather radios at that time, with an all-clear message to follow at 10 a.m. All Maryland schools are being encouraged to participate, and businesses, families and individuals can develop their own tornado plans and join in, too. Tornado plans should involve heading to the lowest small...

A tornado with 80 mph winds moved across 1.2 miles near Jarrettsville on Friday night, National Weather Service officials confirmed Monday. The tornado ranked as an EF-0 on the Enhanced Fujita scale, according to a report the weather service's Baltimore/Washington forecast office posted to its website Monday afternoon. That classification is the weakest on the EF scale and includes tornadoes with gusts of 65 to 85 mph lasting at least three seconds. Damage discovered when weather service officials surveyed the area included a gazebo being lifted off the porch of a house and dropped on top of the house's roof and large trees being uprooted or snapped in half, according to a report posted on the weather service website Tuesday.

A tornado touched down in the Largo area of Prince George's County during storms that passed through the region Friday, the National Weather Service confirmed Monday. Meteorologists had previously confirmed another tornado in Northern Virginia. The Largo tornado touched down at 7:26 p.m. in the Marlboro Ridge neighborhood, uprooting trees, blowing out windows and garage doors and walls. The tornado traveled about half a mile, lasting less than a minute, according to the weather service.

The funnel cloud that caused minor damage in Ocean City on Thursday has been officially determined to be a tornado, a National Weather Service meteorologist said Saturday. The storm began as a waterspout over the Assawoman Bay and dissipated as it transitioned onto land about 3:55 p.m. near 75th Street, said Dan Proch, of NWS' Wakefield, Va., bureau. Gusts were estimated to be 60 to 70 miles per hour, he said. An on-site investigation Saturday revealed that the tornado was about 40 yards wide and cut a path of about one-half mile, Proch said.

The National Weather Service confirmed Friday that a tornado passed through the Lake Shore neighborhood east of Pasadena in Anne Arundel County during Thursday's storm. Officials at the National Weather Service said the tornado reached maximum winds of 80 mph, with a path as wide as 200 yards and as wide as one mile long, passing within a half mile of Chesapeake High, Chesapeake Middle and Bodkin Elementary schools. The tornado formed at about 9:46 p.m. over Cornfield Creek, knocking a sailboat on its side and then moving toward Milburn Circle in Lake Shore, where it knocked down several trees.

A tornado touched down in the Largo area of Prince George's County during storms that passed through the region Friday, the National Weather Service confirmed Monday. Meteorologists had previously confirmed another tornado in Northern Virginia. The Largo tornado touched down at 7:26 p.m. in the Marlboro Ridge neighborhood, uprooting trees, blowing out windows and garage doors and walls. The tornado traveled about half a mile, lasting less than a minute, according to the weather service.

Update: The National Weather Service cancelled the tornado watch for all counties west of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland around 8:30 p.m.   The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., had been eyeing storms that have lumbered through the Plains states this week to reach the East Coast Friday afternoon and evening. In the mid-Atlantic, the "environment is conducive for both damaging winds and a tornado threat. " Conditions could "prove favorable for storms to become organized with the potential for supercells," the forecasters wrote.

A tornado watch and flash flood warning are in effect for the Baltimore region, with heavy rain and gusty winds expected through the night. The tornado watch area includes all of central and southern Maryland and is effective through 2 a.m. Thursday. A tornado watch means conditions are favorable for tornado development but does not mean any have or will occur. The Baltimore area is also under a flash-flood warning, coastal flood advisory and a wind advisory through early Thursday.

A tornado with 80 mph winds moved across 1.2 miles near Jarrettsville on Friday night, National Weather Service officials confirmed Monday. The tornado ranked as an EF-0 on the Enhanced Fujita scale, according to a report the weather service's Baltimore/Washington forecast office posted to its website Monday afternoon. That classification is the weakest on the EF scale and includes tornadoes with gusts of 65 to 85 mph lasting at least three seconds. Damage discovered when weather service officials surveyed the area included a gazebo being lifted off the porch of a house and dropped on top of the house's roof and large trees being uprooted or snapped in half, according to a report posted on the weather service website Tuesday.

The National Weather Service has confirmed that a tornado touched down, damaging several homes and sending a gazebo up onto a roof , in Jarrettsville during the storms that passed through the Baltimore metro area Friday evening . "An EF-0 tornado with maximum winds of 80 miles per hour caused tree and minor roofing damage Friday evening between 7:07 p.m. and 7:12 p.m.," the National Weather Service said in a statement Monday afternoon. The path of the tornado stretched 1.2 miles, according to the statement.

The National Weather Service has recorded two reports of damage in Harford County from storms that moved through the Baltimore metro area Friday evening. Just after 7 p.m., a 911 caller reported downed trees and powerlines along a 100-foot wide path near Salem Church and Cox roads in Jarrettsville. About the same time, a gazebo was reported damaged near the intersection of Route 23 and Salem Church Road. A tornado has not been confirmed, but the damage is in an area that was under a tornado warning at the time of the reports, said National Weather Service meteorologist Stephen Konarik in Sterling, Va. The weather service will investigate the damage and any photographic evidence to determine whether a tornado occured, he said.

A tornado watch and flash flood warning are in effect for the Baltimore region, with heavy rain and gusty winds expected through the night. The tornado watch area includes all of central and southern Maryland and is effective through 2 a.m. Thursday. A tornado watch means conditions are favorable for tornado development but does not mean any have or will occur. The Baltimore area is also under a flash-flood warning, coastal flood advisory and a wind advisory through early Thursday.

(From the Maryland Weather blog) The National Weather Service concluded tonight that the violent windstorm that struck Northeast Baltimore and Parkville was an EF-1 tornado with top winds of 85 to 100 mph. Damage was tracked along a path five miles long, all done within the span of four minutes. But the tornado was part of a more complex storm that included powerful straight-line winds, too. Here is the report, published, as is their custom, in all capital letters: AFTER AN EXTENSIVE REVIEW OF NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE AND FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION WEATHER RADARS.

Tornado activity across the country is running well below normal so far this year, with the spring and summer severe weather seasons behind us. But in Maryland -- a "top tornado state" according to one list -- the year has been normal, if not above-average. There have been 757 tornadoes across the country, according to a preliminary tally by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center. That is about 400 tornadoes behind what would be expected at this point in a normal year. The annual average number of tornadoes across the country is about 1,300, though there were about 1,700 in 2011.

Storms that passed through Maryland and Virginia on Saturday spawned six separate tornado warnings, including one in which a funnel cloud was spotted in Anne Arundel County, but none have been confirmed as tornadoes. That's according to a review of the storms the National Weather Service's Sterling, Va., office posted on its website. The storms passed through between about 3 p.m. and 5 p.m., knocking down trees from Washington County to Anne Arundel County and to the south and west in Virginia.