DELAWARE, Ohio (WCMH) — Severe storms moved through central Ohio triggering a handful of severe thunderstorm & tornado warnings Monday evening.
After reports of damage and possible rotation, a team from the National Weather Service came out Tuesday to survey the damage in Delaware and Union counties.
The damage survey started on Franklin Street in Delaware, where a large tree was uprooted.
Then, the survey moved to Carson Farms, where there was a report from someone in the area of tornadic activity. While looking around, there was still evidence of a down tree, broken fence, and leaf splattering which could have been due to strong wind.
Some of the most significant damage was to a house on Jumper Road. While the person living in the home was fine, her house and barn were both damaged. Debris in the form of shingles, a gutter, and insulation was scattered around her backyard and down the street.
After seeing some of the damage, Brandon Peloquin, warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service Office in Wilmington, offered his take on the findings.
“I think there are multiple instances of damage,” he said. “Now, whether that damage was from straight-line winds or tornados remains to be seen, and that’s why we’re out here in the field to look at the damage, see how things were blown, what direction the trees and anything else is pointing, and then that can help us determine what actually caused the damage.”
Whether it’s down trees or other debris from a storm, when conducting a damage survey, meteorologists are looking at not only what was damaged, but the direction that it fell.
“If all the trees are pointed in the same direction, say from west to east, that would be wind damage, but if we see trees knocked down pointed all different directions, especially in the opposite of where the storm was moving, that could be a signal of a tornado,” Peloquin said.
The National Weather Service is still looking at the information collected from this survey to determine if there was damage from a tornado or just from straight-line wind damage.
Severe weather can happen at any time, so it is important to make sure that you have a plan and are staying Weather aware. One way to do that is by downloading the NBC4 mobile weather app and checking in with NBC4i.com/weather.
