Weather Service Investigates Possible Tornado In Anne Arundel County
CROWNSVILLE, Md. (WJZ)-- The National Weather Service is trying to determine whether a tornado touched down in an Anne Arundel County community.
Mike Hellgren is surveying the damage in Crownsville.
Strong winds whipped through the area, uprooting several trees. The National Weather Service says preliminarily they do not believe a tornado touched down in the area but the straight line winds were as high as 70 mph.
Heavy rain, hail and strong winds whipped through Anne Arundel County around 3 p.m. Tuesday, closing roads and cutting power.
"I heard like a rumbling, like it was in the distance. It was kind of strange. But the trees in the back they were whipping like this, around in a circle and going in all kinds of different directions ," said John Golmoljak, an Anne Arundel County resident.
WJZ caught up with a National Weather Service crew who came here to investigate the damage.
"We are finding general straight line wind damage here, trees that are blown down or snapped off in a west to east direction. That tells us that there was a down-burst in straight line winds probably in the 60 to 70 mile an hour range ," said Ken Widelski, NWS.
Many spent Wednesday cleaning up. Few have ever seen a storm as fast and bad in the area.
"I looked out. One minute I was just seeing rain, and then I just happened to go back to the same window and all these trees were down," said Peggy Torney, Anne Arundel County resident.
In Charlotte Grimes' yard, the tops of trees snapped as she and her brother ran to the basement.
"When I looked outside, I was like 'Oh my God.' Stuff flying. It was so quick it was like a blur," Grimes said. "The storm hit so quick that it was almost like a white out outside."
No homes were significantly damaged and no one was hurt.
"Was it a down burst? What is a tornado? We should know within a few days," Widelski said.
National Weather Service investigators were next headed to the Gambrills area, where they received some reports of a rotation.
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