From WTOP News, today's article confirms that tornados touched down in Virginia and Maryland (again) on Wednesday. It's not the first time, and it won't be the last, that tornados have struck the national capitol area, but this year especially it seems that the jet stream or the prevailing weather pattern (La Nina?) has been sending a "conveyor belt" of severe weather to the Mid-Atlantic region. We have been under a "tornado watch" multiple times in the past month, which is unheard of for the DC area. On Wednesday, according to Ch 7 meteorologist Doug Hill, this was the first time we have seen tornado WARNINGS in multiple counties simultaneously from a single event.

Weather Fatality

A 57-year-old Delaware man was killed when a tree fell and crushed the 1995 Toyota 4Runner he was riding in. Huu Dai Pham was killed instantly.

The driver, a 62-year-old Annandale man, was driving south on Hummer Road just past Gallows Road around 3:10 p.m.

I actually got the picture above from Thursday's Washington Post. What amazes me about this story, after looking at the picture of the SUV from both sides, is that the driver (a man, not a woman, as reported on television) was taken to the hospital for minor injuries. The single fatality from Wednesday afternoon's storms took place in Annandale, on a busy street close to our house, a street on which I drive several times a week. But there is MORE...

Here is their version: "Huu Dai Pham, 57, of Delaware was killed when a massive oak tree smashed into a white 1995 Toyota 4Runner on Hummer Road in Annandale just before 3:15 p.m., at the height of the first wave of storms, authorities said. The driver, a 62-year-old Annandale man, was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. At least two motorists were also pulled from their cars in Bethesda after trees fell onto the vehicles, trapping them. One of those rescued, a 40-year-old woman, suffered minor injuries, authorities said. The storms, with high winds and blinding rain, pounded the region well into the night and might have spawned small tornadoes in Falls Church; in Fairfax County; near Stafford, Va.; near Bel Alton, in Charles County; and near the Anne Arundel-Calvert county line. National Weather Service experts planned to survey damage and investigate tornado reports today."

Why do I say this was "Too Close To Home?"

In the USA, we already set a record for the number of tornados up until this point, and I already commented on it several times. On Friday May 9, not quite a month ago, there were tornados in Stafford county that "ripped the roofs off of homes like a can opener." At that time I said it was "too close to home" and that was 40 miles away, but not far from where I used to work, in an area I was familiar with. A few days before that, tornados had touched down in southeast Virginia. I was starting to feel like something was up- we had seen earthquakes, tornados, floods (in our basement), plagues (disease), vermin (lice), "strange alien bugs," and more... if I had looked out in my back yard and seen hundreds of frogs, or if the water from the tap had started flowing red, I would have been really alarmed!

So on Wednesday, when I saw the sky darkening to the west, I turned on the radio in the car, and WTOP said we were under a tornado watch until 8 PM. I called Susan on my cell - she was waiting outside during Elisabeth's doctor appointment. A few minutes later, they broke in on the news with a tornado WARNING for Loudon County, near Berryville, west of Leesburg... a line of storms moving due east at 40 mph (so they said) with rotation indicated on radar. I did the math in my head and figured I had 30 minutes to finish my errands and get back to the office where I could park in the covered parking deck. I got a take-out sandwich for lunch, and then decided to stop for gas. Even then the sky was not that dark. In the convenience mart I got gum, cheese&peanut butter crackers, and two cans of ready-to-microwave soup (staples for a "shelter in place" scenario). When I came back out, no more than 5 minutes later, a large black cloud was arching over the gas station and had some ominous rotation. Within seconds after getting in my car, torrential rains and the wind blowing the rain horizontally! I inched my way down the highway back to my office, the rain coming down so hard I could barely see with the wipers on the highest setting... then the traffic signal was out at a major intersection... so we had to treat it like a four way stop. I made it through the security gate and to the parking garage, where I parked in the bottom level in a corner space that was partially earth sheltered.

Driving to work Thursday morning was an interesting experience. I was surprised at how many traffic signals were still out, as well as road closures and detours due to power lines down across the road.