Waterspout UPDATE: Actually a Tornado!

Ok, so you know how I told you that we here at PBC survived another waterspout? I was wrong, we survived a TORNADO!! I knew it felt awfully scary...

The National Weather Service (NWS) ruled that the storm we experienced on the night of June 10, 2013 was in fact an EF-0 tornado. I've never really understood the reasoning behind using a zero for rankings when it has no value, but I digress...that's an entirely different conversation. Anyway, they declared that it was actually a tornado and part of their decision to name it as such was because of the damage further up the street where a trampoline was shot into the air and became lodged in the top of a tree. You can see a really cool map and read all about this incident at the National Weather Service Website.

And here is a picture I was able to snap of the trampoline dangling from the tip-top of the tree!

Oh and don't forget the Derecho that came through last Thursday, June 14, 2013...a report I saw on the Southern Maryland Weather facebook page stated that the NWS confirmed that as the storm came through Coltons Point, it produced a waterspout that then formed ANOTHER tornado once it reached land. Two tornado's within a four day time frame?! Crazy.

I'm sure it doesn't seem crazy, or even newsworthy, to the residents of Oklahoma or Texas, but we live in Maryland people...We rarely get tornado's, let alone two within one week in the same neighborhood. We were lucky in the fact that we didn't sustain any serious damage, but our neighbors up the street weren't so lucky. They had a tree from the neighbors yard on their other side completely uproot and land on the roof of their house. Everyone was fine, but it left quite a mess! Again, these were EF-0's, so they weren't extremely serious, but I'm still thankful to the Big Guy for keeping us and our home safe. Check out some of the damage from tornado #2 in CP:

I will try and get a picture of the tree on the roof and update once I do!!


***Update! Here is the picture of the neighbors with a tree on their roof:

PBC Survives Another Waterspout

We were expecting some pretty heavy rains yesterday evening here in Southern Maryland, and boy did we get them. Around 8:30pm the thick clouds finally gave way and drenched Colton's Point. Just as I was making my way to the bedroom to read I asked Bubba to mute the TV because it was the loudest rain I'd ever heard in my life. And then it sounded like the porch was going to rip off, and I'm pretty sure the house was shaking/rattling. We flipped on the local news stations and saw that we had a tornado watch in full effect. I got nervous and wanted to head to the guest room in the center of the house, but withing minutes the howling and rattling stopped and the rain slowed down.

We never lost power or had any other cause for concern. But then I got a couple of worried text messages and phone calls and started to wonder if the rest of the neighborhood had seen something we didn't. Luckily, it wasn't much, and there was very minimal damage, but it appears that a waterspout did make it's way down the top half of Point Breeze Rd. and across the Point onto Beach Rd. You can read about it on the local fire departments website, HERE.

I quickly snapped a few pictures as I left for work this morning:

Beach Rd.

Top of Point Breeze Rd.

Top of Point Breeze Rd. (if you head straight ahead in this photo, you'll be on beach Rd.)

Top of Point Breeze Rd.

Top of Point Breeze Rd.

The only damage we sustained: My garden decor/bird, who had been sitting on my porch railing, fell to the ground.  Honestly, I think this so-called spout shot off into the River once it got down in front of our house, so we were pretty lucky!