Tornado's path of destruction Friday
Michael Carey had just settled in to watch a baseball game Friday night at his home near Buck when he saw flashes of lightning and heard the wind kick up as rain began pummeling his rancher.
Within minutes, tree branches started pelting his roof and Carey was roused from his TV viewing by a loud wail and a sickening cracking sound.
He ran to his front door to see a giant oak toppling toward his house. Carey braced for the impact as the tree crashed through an addition on his home, destroying nearly half the structure.
"I had no warning whatsoever," lamented Carey, who was not injured when a tornado raced through his property shortly after 8 p.m. Friday, toppling the tree. "When I heard the freight-train wind, I knew it was something major."
Carey was not alone in his surprise.
Few television or radio stations aired information about the tornado before it hit, mainly because the National Weather Service did not issue a tornado warning until 8:18 p.m. — eight minutes after the twister had touched ground.
Prior to that, the NWS issued a "special weather statement" about an approaching "strong thunderstorm" that was far less ominous than a tornado warning and was not picked up by most media outlets or broadcast over the county's emergency radio system.
The twister injured at least 15 people, damaged or destroyed 50 structures and caused an estimated $5 million to $7 million in damage as it cut a 16-mile path across the county, from Drumore to Paradise.
Given how the tornado caught so many off-guard, it's fortunate more people were not injured or killed, said Randy Gockley, director of the county's Emergency Management Agency.
"Truly, this was one unique storm that gave no warning," he said.
Emergency responders and media outlets rely on the National Weather Service to alert them to potentially dangerous weather conditions, Gockley said. But Friday night, no tornado warnings were issued, even though such warnings were issued south and north of Lancaster County before and after the twister hit here.
A meteorologist with the Weather Service said radar data and eyewitness accounts on the storm as it headed for Lancaster County didn't indicate the need for a tornado warning.
"Hindsight is nice to have, but based on the reports we were getting in real time and the radar signatures, it didn't indicate a tornado," said Peter Jung, warning coordination meteorologist in the State College office of the NWS.
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According to Jung and other NWS meteorologists, here's how the tracking of the storm played out.
At 6:27 p.m. Friday, the Baltimore-Washington D.C. office of the weather service issued a tornado warning for Baltimore County, Md., through 7 p.m.
Following a "credible report" of a funnel cloud sighting in Baltimore County, the NWS at 6:52 p.m. issued a second tornado warning, this one for Harford County, Md., just south of York, through 7:30 p.m.
Meanwhile, NWS meteorologists in State College, which monitors Lancaster County weather, were tracking the same storms, which appeared to wane as they headed here, Jung said.
"The storms' circulation over Lancaster County was not as strong as what we had to the south," he said. "The overall structure looked like it was weakening."
In addition, at that point the NWS had yet to confirm the tornado sighting in Maryland, Jung said.
As one of the storms neared the county, it intensified, prompting the NWS at 7:58 p.m. to issue a special weather statement indicating a strong thunderstorm near Holtwood, moving northeast at 30 mph, with heavy rains and wind gusts to 40 mph.
As the storm continued to intensify, the NWS upgraded that statement at 8:18 p.m. to a severe thunderstorm warning indicating a storm packing winds in excess of 60 mph.
The statement also mentioned that "a tornado may develop," although it did not warn that one was imminent.
Media outlets began to carry the warning on their airwaves and websites, but by then it was too late for many people.
The tornado touched ground at 8:10 p.m. in Drumore Township, according to the NWS, and churned northeast across the county with winds of up to 110 mph before lifting back up at 8:20 p.m. in Paradise.
As reports of the damage started to come in, the NWS office in Mount Holly, N.J., which covers Berks County, issued a tornado warning for eastern Berks and Reading at 8:59 p.m.
But no tornado materialized there, and there were few reports of storm damage, according to a meteorologist in the Mount Holly office.
South of Lancaster, the NWS confirmed Monday that a small tornado had touched down briefly Friday night in Jarrettsville, Md., around 7 p.m.
But it was smaller than the Lancaster twister, packing winds of just 80 mph and cutting a swath only 1.2 miles long.
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The tornado here was much more severe, so how did the NWS fail to catch it in time?
Jung said the weather conditions didn't meet the thresholds established to issue a tornado warning.
The storm did not have a strong rotation, based on Doppler radar, before it hit the county, he said, and there were no eyewitness reports of a funnel on the ground.
Darkness likely played role in that.
"Had this been a different time of day, perhaps eyewitnesses would have seen funnel clouds, and we could have made a different forecast," Jung said.
"It's kind of a fine line. You hate to issue too many (tornado warnings) and have false alarms, because people become numb to them," he said.
"But it was unfortunate that people were caught outside."
Jung said tornadoes are far less common than severe storms, which can be just as destructive as twisters. Last year, the 33 counties covered by the State College office had 16 tornadoes, compared with several hundred severe thunderstorms, he said.
Friday's twister here was the first since March 29, 2009.
Gockley said the storm was difficult to predict because it lacked the telltale signs of an approaching tornado, including humid, windy conditions and hail.
"In my career, I don't know of a single incident when you did not have hail in advance of a tornado," he said. "This storm just showed that Mother Nature has a mind of her own."
Media outlets are not obligated to broadcast all Weather Service alerts, although most will notify the public of warnings and watches for storms, floods and other weather events.
Less-severe notices, like the one initially issued for Lancaster County, are not routinely broadcast but are assessed on a case-by-case basis, according to television news directors.
Gockley said the only way for the public to be notified of all NWS notifications is via a tone-alert weather radio.
The radios, which are mandated at schools, nursing homes and other institutions, are "the best way to get emergency information," he said.
