National Weather Service determines what caused severe storm damage in Easton, Berks

Straight-line winds in a powerful squall line caused damage on Sunday night in a Berks County community, according to the National Weather Service.

The same set of storms soon after took down the steeple on Trinity Baptist Church in Easton. That was also a straight-line wind event, meteorologist Jonathan O’Brien said Tuesday morning from the Mount Holly, New Jersey, office.

A storage facility in the 100 block of Kunkle Road in Maxatawny Township, which is in the northeastern part of the county, was heavily damaged in wind gusts that the weather service estimated hit 80 mph, which is a greater speed than the lower-end sustained wind in a Category 1 hurricane. There was a dump truck with a trailer in front of the building, according to a report from the scene. Building debris was balanced against the truck after the storm.

The wind’s path stretched for 1.8 miles and was 150 yards wide, according tp preliminary damage survey results, the weather service said.

It was the only location in Pennsylvania and New Jersey that drew a weather service survey team and such specific details, O’Brien confirmed.

Damage from such events tends to be in one direction, while a tornado would had cast debris about more randomly.

Sunday night’s line of storms preceded a cold from and drew strength from unsettled weather in the upper Midwest and Canada, a meteorologist from WeatherWorks in Hackettstown said Monday.

The wind field was already fairly great in the squall line before it was pushed to the ground, O’Brien said.

There were no injuries or deaths reported in the Maxatawny event, which lasted from 6:48 p.m. to 6:51 p.m. as the thin but fierce line quickly passed through.

Straight line winds are caused when winds from about 2,000 feet up and typically moving at a higher speed in the atmosphere are dragged by a downdraft to the surface, O’Brief said. A downpour can be the driver of such an event, O’Brien said. It depends on the storm’s “internal dynamics”, O’Brien said.

Once the wind gets to the surface, it moves forward and eventually “gusts itself out,” O’Brien said. The path of the debris field often isn’t as well defined as it would be after a tornado because the wind expands in width and dissipates, he said.

Such winds can “ebb and flow” so Berks County gets hit hard and then there’s a large gap before Easton’s South Side gets hit, O’Brien said.

Since the weather never rests, be mindful there is a “slight chance” of snow showers on Tuesday and Tuesday night.

Freelance photographer Mike Nester provided on-scene reporting for this post.

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Tony Rhodin can be reached at [email protected].