Oklahoma Comes To New England

Sky over Philadelphia Tuesday. Photo via Twitter,
@Lozak_Jr.  

As expected, Oklahoma style weather came to New England and other parts of the Northeast on Tuesday.

The region experience a number of tornado watches and warnings, wall clouds, hail, big winds and other staples of the type of weather more common in the Great Plains spring and summer.

As of early this morning, there were no confirmed reports of tornado touchdowns.

However, local National Weather Service offices in Connecticut, New Jersey and elsewhere are investigating pockets of heavy damage to see whether they were caused by tornadoes or straight line winds.

One area of damage is North Haven, Connecticut, where television station WTNH reports several homes severely damaged, evacuated and condemned by the extreme winds. 

A video you'll see below shows what appears to be a tornado at Long Beach Island, New Jersey, and there were other reports of possible tornadoes in New Jersey, and possibly Maryland and Virginia.

A wall cloud, which is often a precurser
to a tornado, over Uxbridge, Mass
Tues. Photo by Pam Martin via Eric
Fisher on Twitter.  

In and around Gloucester, New Jersey, a possible tornado overturned at least one car in a mall parking lot, and a number of homes and businesses were damaged, says NJ.com.

Tens of thousands of people were still without power in much of the Northeast Wednesday morning.

This weather was extreme for the Northeast but not unprecedented. There have been even stronger tornadoes in the past, such as the June 1, 2011 EF-3 tornado in Springfield, Brimfield, and Monson, Mass., and the epic Worcester County, Massachusetts tornado that killed dozens of people and flattened large neighborhoods in June, 1953.

The weather is much calmer in New England today, with maybe just a few widely scattered garden variety showers and thunderstorms in parts of northern New England this afternoon.

But no rest for the weary elsewhere. Parts of the northern Plains and Midwest, pummeled by a derecho and destructive tornadoes Monday are under the gun again today.

Severe storms, tornadoes, and flooding are likely in this area. Severe weather continues in parts of teh Midwest tomorrow, too.

Here's that video of a possible tornado in Long Beach Island, New Jersey:




And here's Tuesday's rough weather in Baltimore County, Maryland: