NORTH WALES, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — The National Weather Service confirmed Tuesday that a tornado touched down in Montgomeryville, Pennsylvania, during the strong storms that moved through the Philadelphia region on Monday.
The weather service categorized the twister as an EF-0 — the weakest rating for a tornado on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, which estimates wind speed and resulting damage. The strongest on the scale is an EF-5.
Wind speed in an EF-0 measures between 65 and 85 mph and is consistent with the considerable damage seen in parts of Montgomery County.
On Tuesday morning, debris from the storm was scattered all around the parking lot of the Hampton Inn and Suites near the intersection of U.S. Route 202 and U.S. Route 309. Siding, insulation and a large HVAC unit were ripped off a Japanese restaurant nearby.
Laveah Weah, who works at the hotel, said her car was parked in the lot when the storm hit.
"The wall came off and started spinning," she said of the restaurant, "and my car was spinning also. And the hood came off the car."
In the surrounding neighborhood, siding was ripped from some homes, and large tree branches lay in the street.
Vincent Bastile, who lives nearby, explained what happened at the height of the storm.
“My wife comes running down the steps, saying 'Get in the basement!' And then all our power went out. And then you hear this big wind and a little bit of vibration," he recalled.
And this wasn’t the only town hit. Christian Gray, a delivery man in Pottstown, said he was in his car when the storm hit.
"I could feel the water on my feet in the car, so I decided to get out, hopped on the roof and then jumped off."
But if that’s the worst of the damage, meteorologist Trent Davis said we’re fortunate.
“The damage is pretty in line with what you’d expect,” he said. “No tornado is going to be the same as another but in this case, yeah, we’re lucky we don’t have any deaths or injuries at this point.”
Davis, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service Forecast Office of Philadelphia/Mount Holly, said a post-Thanksgiving tornado is unusual, but not out of the realm of possibility.
“It’s a little less usual than in the summer, but it’s not unheard of,” he said. “It is getting to be late in the fall, so it is getting a little more rare this time of year.”
There was a late-November tornado a few years ago in Delaware, he added, so this isn’t unprecedented.
This is the 14th tornado confirmed this year in the region.