Storms Blow Through
June 25th, 2012 at 5:31 pm by Jeremy Wheeler under Weather
The storms developed into a line, pretty close in time and shape to what our Future Trak model had by the late morning run. Here was the radar view at 5:20pm.
Super Doppler 10 (5:20pm)
The storms rolled in quickly and they should roll out just as fast. We’ve had some very strong wind gusts. I saw a gust to 54mph at Langley Air Force Base a little while ago. There was a gust to 40mph at Norfolk Naval Base. We had a report of hail in the Denbigh area of Newport News as well as Norfolk. The storms are moving to the southeast at a good clip. It will be like being in an outdoor carwash for about 15-25mph. After the storms move through then you’ll have some light rain and cooler temperatures. It isn’t the cold front just yet, but the air is all rain cooled. The front will pass through later this evening, but these storms should take a lot of the bite out any later rain. Our fellow meteorologist Mike Goldberg just reported on-air that he saw a lot of damage up near the Richmond area. He also said the storms moved in and out quickly. Most of the winds have been straight lined today, but it’s possible that there were a couple of quick spin ups along the cloud edge. For the longer term forecast you can see my previous blog. Be careful out there this evening.
Meteorologist: Jeremy Wheeler
WAVY/Fox 43 Meteorologist
Thank you as always for the wonderful information. I always enjoy reading your blog, especially during hurricane season. Anyway, we were at work in Hampton/Newport News yesterday afternoon when the storm hit. There was a lot of flooding, hail and wind damage. However, we have one question that I am hoping you can answer. The wind was so strong at one point it actually blew open the front door (a heavy glass door) of our building several times. One of my co-workers tried to hold the door shut for this brief period of time. Wouldn’t this indicate some sort of suction? I would assume strong winds would blow against the door rather than pull it open. We definitely thought it was a small tornado..it was like a scene from a movie!
Hello Kyrstyn. Thanks for the nice comments. You have an interesting question. Someone else asked if the pressure was low enough to blow out their car windows. If there was a strong tornado, then I would say that that’s possible, but not in yesterday’s case. Having said that… buildings are a bit different. My house has vents on the top for hot air to escape from the attic. When a strong wind blows over this then there is some suction and the small door that goes to the attic from the 2nd floor will literally lift up. If you’ve ever blown (strong) across a straw that sits in a drink, you would see the liquid rise in the straw. It creates a small area of low presssure. Buildings are complex. A window could be open. Maybe the back door was open. But winds can enter the building and create all kinds of weak pressure zones. Was there a gap under the door? It may be as simple as some wind got in that gap and pushed it open. Hard to say, but the strong straight-line wind was the cause not the overall pressure. Hope that makes sense. You take care. Jeremy Wheeler