WEATHER EXCITEMENT!

FROM A LOCAL NEWS SERVICE: (WESR) A tornado touched down on the Eastern Shore, in Accomack County near Logan Road in Onley on Saturday.A strong storm began moving down the seaside of the Eastern Shore Saturday morning. Heavy rain, thunder and lightening were also reported. As much as 6 inches of rain fell in the Gargatha area. Several reports of heavy rain were also reported as the storms moved south by southwest along the Eastern Shore. According to Greg Lewis of the Accomack County Dept. of Emergency Services there were no injuries and no buildings were damaged. There were reports of power outages in the Burton Shore-Locustville area. Pictured: A confirmed tornado hit the Eastern Shore early Saturday afternoon. The top photo is courtesy of Linda Ross and was taken near Logan Road in Onley. The bottom photo is courtesy of Kate Evans and was taken at 1:25 this afternoon behind Melfa just off of Phillips Drive/Mapp rd, just off of Main Street.
And NO, Pizza Hut did not get hit. That funnel cloud was out in Colonial Village when someone took this picture. Colonial Village begins at the end of my property here in Onley, but on the other side of the street. It goes back to our woods that Elizabeth owned which runs from the middle of my property north and west. The tornado went thru that field on the north side of town, thru her woods and into Colonial Village, then lifted and headed down to Wachepreague and Quinby. Apparently it touched down first near the Custis Neck intersection just above the new Accawmacke Elementary School in Daugherty, then headed down here.

I have been sent numerous other photos, one photo, including the Evans photo has been claimed by several people... a few of these are mine. As I have mentioned before, I have learned not to drive thru flooded areas. Our roads back here are very narrow, so narrow some farm equipment not only takes up the entire road but can rip up bushes planted too close to the road, even knock over utility boxes along the roadways. So, if someone else is coming, it is a guess to figure out where the drainage ditch is along these turtle back roads. And they are turtle backs because it is so flat here, we have to have drainage ditches all over the Shore. The deepest part of this "puddle" might be close to 4 feet next to the field.
I do thank all the folks who called or emailed to see if I was all right. Truth is, Hadji and I hunkered down on the sofa thru most of it. Hadji is scared to death of thunder, and this storm had over an hour of almost continuous thunder. As one blast slowly rolled and rolled the next one hit. Had it been night time, there would have been quite a light show. At times the rain was so hard I could not see my barns out back about 50 feet from the kitchen window. My CoCoRaHS rain gauge collected 1.90 inches of rain, but my neighbor to the south got only 1.5. To the west, Joe's gauge hit 2 inches, and the radio said Gargatha had 6! I do know the first time I ventured out, the road shown here was completely covered, so I turned around on Stonehouse and came back home. The woods in the upper right side of this last picture is where I live. This is about a half a mile from my house. Pizza Hut and CVS are about 1 mile ENE. To my west, they lost power. All I lost was the internet and a bunch of small branches I will have to pick up in a little bit before it gets too hot. It is already steamy out there.

Now you might be wondering, since when is a tornado WHITE? It is white when it starts out as a waterspout... so this is not filled with dust and debris like the tornadoes you see out west, this is filled with water from the Chesapeake Bay! One can only assume then that the rain from this cloud might have been a tiny bit on the salty side? At least that is what one of my fellow weather folks told me. I did not taste it, so I don't know!