june 8th 2022: was it a microburst? or was it a tornado?

On the afternoon and evening of June 8th, multiple rounds of thunderstorms produced widespread heavy rain and flash flooding across central Maryland. In addition, an area of intense rotation associated with a supercell embedded within a cluster of thunderstorms resulted in significant wind damage over Columbia. 

At 8:27pm, an area of weak rotation began to develop south of Columbia by about 3 miles (above image). At this point, it wasn't of concern as the environment wasn't super favorable for tornadoes, but I began to have an increased sense of awareness and kept a closer eye on the storm. For now, the main threat remained very heavy rain and ongoing flash flooding which prompted an additional flash flood warning. 

By 8:29pm, the rotation had begun to quickly intensify as it likely was interacting with an outflow boundary from a prior storm (see above image). At this point, I began to get a bit more concerned and so I started writing a post to our Facebook page that was going to tell people in the area "this storm is starting to concern me due the intensifying rotation and a tornado warning is likely to be issued shortly". 

BUT.... before I could finish writing that post, the next radar scan came in at 8:32pm and it became immediately clear a tornado was either ongoing or about to hit the east side of Columbia and a tornado warning was issued for eastern Howard County. There was a clear velocity couplet and hook echo as well (See above image) showing a clear tornado signature from a radar perspective. 

Above you can see the NWS report of major wind damage where the velocity couplet was most intense. The most intense damage occurred from near Atholton to Oakland mills, the Cradlerock area, and also near Kendall ridge. I drove through these areas and to me, it looked like high end EF1 tornado damage (winds around 100mph). But the official report from NWS was that this was a microburst of 75mph winds and NOT a tornado. To produce tree damage of this magnitude, it should have taken winds over 85mph, not a peak of 75mph. That doesn't seem like a big difference, but remember that damage increases exponential with wind, not linearly. So an additional 10mph can make a major difference in the damage. 

Forecaster Jack