2012-06-01 REPORTS: MD

[TrumanBoyer]

Started my day near Johnstown, PA.

Targeted the Moderate Risk area near Baltimore, Washington DC.

Drove US RT 30 to York PA, then dove south toward Baltimore on I-83.

Nothing but overcast and heavy warm rain the whole way, until...

About 1 Mile North of Baltimore Beltway, suddenly very dark sky, ONE (1)
lightning flash and funnel cloud to my East. Could not confirm if it reached
the ground or not (trees and HEAVY rain and traffic), saw it for less than 1 minute, and
at the same time a Lamborghini Diabolo appeared in the lane next to me.
Very Distracting !! wasn't sure which amazing thing to look at !!

no photo, sorry -- too dangerous to try.

BWI airport tower confirms a tornado on the airport premises about 10 minutes prior to
my sighting, and there was damage to homes in Bel Air, MD, a little north and east of
where I was and about 5 minutes later.

There were no reports of damage between BWI and Bel Air, so I will not add this to my
official tornado count. I probably saw it while it was aloft.

We do get'em here in MD, but they are way too much work to catch.

-T

 

[David Rundle]

Started my day about 3 miles from BWI. (the irony is not lost on me). Found the first cell of the day running up the I-270 corridor from DC to Fredrick. Not visually impressive, and anything there would have been rain-wrapped.

Continued south into VA, thinking that the overcast in MD would hamper initiation. Intercepted the second cell with far better structure and rising scud, and solid inflow near McLean, VA. The updraft strength took me by surprise, the anvil was backsheared! (First time I've seen that on an eastern storm.)

There was a broad area of rotation in each cell, but as each storm caught up with the warm front, the rotation tightened. No visual evidence of any solid RFD winds making it to the ground with the second storm as LWX issued the tornado warning.

The area of storm initiation was incredibly small; bounded by the front range of the Blue Ridge mountains, and the Chesapeake Bay. On the LWX radar, there was a bay-breeze that was clearly present, no storms initiated within 15 miles of the western shore.

 

[Lou Ruh]

I wasn't sure I was going to chase, but, after looking at how things were shaping up around noon, I quickly put together a chase team and headed out. We left SE PA about 2PM and headed west and then south. Observed two cells with rotation just off I83 at the PA/MD border. We then decided to head for the cell coming out of the Baltimore area toward the Bel Air area. We got caught up in rush hour traffic and very twisty roads, but, we still got close to the cell that spawned the Pleasant Hills tornado ... close enough to get blinding rain and we were probably less than a mile from the tornado (so, if we hadn't stopped and waited it out where we were, we probably would have ventured into a rain-wrapped EF-1). Afterwards, with no storms close enough to chase, we started to head home and ended up driving through the damage path ... the official survey result of EF-1 looked about right. On the way home we drove through some minor street flooding and had to detour around a few more downed trees, poles and wires. Considering that we decided to chase so late in the game, not a bad chase.