Tornado Warning in SE PA 6/1/2012

Yesterday was not just the first day of June but to weather fans it is the beginning of "Meteorological Summer"and the first day for the 2012 hurricane season.  Because of this I was reading a bit about FEMA and how to be prepared for storms, when I started to see that meteorologist were discussing the possibility of a Tornado Watch for our area.  I started to check every report on a regular basis, the first warning was for South Central PA and then we watched how storms were affecting Maryland and Virginia.  By the time I was done for the day at work, my weather radio had gone off and I checked and noticed more alerts for severe weather.   When I got home even more alerts were produced, then finally there was the alert posting a tornado warning for Montgomery and then one for Bucks county.  I did see on radar evidence of a rotating storm and the weather channel described on live TV, that there was a hook echo just west of Hatboro. (a hook echo on radar, which is a sign of a possible tornado).  Luckily an actual tornado did not touch down in our area.  Below is a recorded radar image, sadly it does not show the hook echo that was seen last night.

There was a tornado that caused damage to 75 homes between Ligonier and Fairfield PA.  The tornado was officially declared by the National Weather Service of Pittsburgh PA, to be a EF1  (an EF1 is from the Enhanced Fujita Scale which means it reaches wind speeds between 86 to 110 MPH).   Below is a photograph where you can clearly see that the whole roof was ripped off this home.  Up to now there were no reports of deaths or injuries, which is always a good thing to hear!

Image is from the Tribune article found here; http://triblive.com/news/1904432-74/ligonier-tornado-confirmed-fairfield-friday-homes-mph-afternoon-national-outside


Here is the official report and survey results from the NWS on 6/1/2012

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PITTSBURGH PA
127 PM EDT SAT JUN 2 2012

...TORNADO CONFIRMED NEAR LIGONIER IN WESTMORELAND COUNTY WESTERN
PENNSYLVANIA...

* LOCATION...LIGONIER IN WESTMORELAND COUNTY WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA

* DATE...JUNE 01 2012

* ESTIMATED TIME...530 PM EDT

* MAXIMUM EF-SCALE RATING...EF1

* ESTIMATED MAXIMUM WIND SPEED...105 MPH

* MAXIMUM PATH WIDTH...300 YARDS

* PATH LENGTH...8 MILES

* FATALITIES...0

* INJURIES...0

* THE INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS PRELIMINARY AND SUBJECT TO
CHANGE PENDING FINAL REVIEW OF THE EVENT(S) AND PUBLICATION IN
NWS STORM DATA.

...SUMMARY...
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN PITTSBURGH PA HAS CONFIRMED A
TORNADO NEAR LIGONIER IN WESTMORELAND COUNTY WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
ON JUNE 01 2012.

SURVEY IS ONGOING AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION WILL BE AVAILABLE
LATER TODAY.

THIS INFORMATION CAN ALSO BE FOUND ON OUR WEBSITE AT
WEATHER.GOV/PITTSBURGH.

FOR REFERENCE...THE ENHANCED FUJITA SCALE CLASSIFIES TORNADOES
INTO THE FOLLOWING CATEGORIES:

EF0...WIND SPEEDS 65 TO 85 MPH.
EF1...WIND SPEEDS 86 TO 110 MPH.
EF2...WIND SPEEDS 111 TO 135 MPH.
EF3...WIND SPEEDS 136 TO 165 MPH.
EF4...WIND SPEEDS 166 TO 200 MPH.
EF5...WIND SPEEDS GREATER THAN 200 MPH.

FEMA announces new Emergency Alert System - IPAWS

President Bush signed an Executive Order to establish a Nationwide alert system back in 2006, the system has made some recent advances to aid the public.

IPAWS - Which stands for the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, has had changes to adapt to new computer/ internet and smartphone technology.

Here is some key points I found out from FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency)

•  Timely Alert and Warning to American People in the preservation of life and property.

•  Provide integrated services and capabilities to local, state, and federal authorities that enable them to alert and warn their respective communities via multiple communications methods.

 One of the key componets of IPAWS is Alert Origination, which is;

Alert origination tools are software products used by emergency managers, public safety officials, and other alerting authorities to create and send critical life saving messages to the public. As commercial software vendors incorporate CAP-conformant alerting into existing or newly developed products, these systems can be authorized to deliver CAP-compliant messages through the IPAWS OPEN Aggregator to reach the public through radio, TV, cellular mobile devices, Internet-based communications, and other CAP-compliant alerting systems.

Here is a video;

Information source fema.gov

Storm Report 5/29/12

The nice thing that we found this morning is that the we received a good amount of rain and now we see much cooler temperatures. Our Memorial Day weekend allowed us to enjoy outdoor activities due to ideal but very warm weather, the cooler temperatures seen in Montgomery Co. this morning were seen around 68 degrees but with a sticky 88 percent relative humidity.

 A fellow Storm Spotter sent me a message last night at about 7:30 PM stating that he saw a quick 10 degree drop in temperature as the cold front was moving into North Wales PA.  As night the storm moved through our area and as I drove through Montgomery County PA I saw some  fallen branches, the stronger parts of the storm moved north up by Lehigh County were it did cause damage to a farm.

Here are some pictures I took last night in Ambler PA as I visited family, again we are glad to see that our area did not see damage.   We are happy to see the new fallen rain, and below the pictures of terrific cloud formations is a link to a map of accumulated precipitation for PA.

Here is the link to the precipitation map by the USGS, it shows that we have above normal rain amounts for the year for much of Montgomery County and other nearby areas of  Southeast PA.

http://waterwatch.usgs.gov/index.php?r=pa&m=pa01d_nwc