Tornado warning in central Maine

[00:00:00]Skowhegan, and another one, which looks pretty impressive right now, up near the town of Harmony. So, we're going to keep an eye on these two cells right in here.

[00:00:08]The current warnings in effect for, again, currently Skowhegan. So, if you're in the warning areas, just briefly run down what you need to do.

[00:00:17]The National Weather Service has a few protocols for you. A tornado warning, what to do, go to the basement or the lowest floor possible, move to an interior room away from windows, doors, cover head and neck, blanket and pillows. With blanket and pillows, I should say. And a lot of folks mean wondering what does a tornado warning mean?

[00:00:36]A tornado has either been sighted or radar indicates that there may be a tornado on the ground, imminent danger life to life and property. In this situation, radar indicates a radar a tornado may be on the ground. So, we're not at least at this point seeing any reports of a tornado sighted. So, if you're just joining us here on CBS 13 and Fox 23, we'll get you back to your program in just a moment, in a little bit. We're going to stay with this for a little bit here. This is on the northern half of our viewing area. It's this cell right here. A brand new tornado warning has been issued for southern Somerset County until 4:00 in the afternoon. It's for Skowhegan heading north now up towards Hartland, actually just on the north side of Hartland over towards Harmony, perhaps. We're going to keep an eye on that as that cell kind of works into that region. This cell looks a little suspicious right near now near Harmony, as well. So, those of you in Skowhegan and Cornville, and again, this is just on the north side of our viewing area from Norridgewock to Skowhegan.

[00:01:37]It's our protocol to keep folks safe in these sort of situations. So, I know a lot of folks want to get back to programming here, but we're going to stay with this just a little bit longer.

[00:01:46]The severe the tornado warning has been issued. Let's try to highlight a few towns. I'm reading this from the weather service as as we're getting it in here.

[00:01:55]A few towns that will be affected by this.

[00:01:58]Uh, they have uh, Skowhegan, uh, Norridgewock.

[00:02:04]It's moving northeast at 20 mph.

[00:02:08]Uh, interesting. Okay, so source, this is brand new information, folks. Weather spotters confirm tornado. So, this is not a radar indicated. We have a confirmed tornado by a weather spotter.

[00:02:20]So, that is uh, some new information coming in. Uh, want to take a look at see if we have any damage reports.

[00:02:26]Sorry, no no reports yet, which is good news there, but uh, hopefully uh, we'll get that information coming in soon. So, again, this is not a radar indicated tornado. This is a spotter confirmed tornado in that warning area for the cell right now moving through Skowhegan.

[00:02:43]So, we're going to get more reports coming in, I think, very soon. If you're in that area, a few things we need to do here. Uh, go to the basement or lowest floor possible. Uh, this is what the weather service recommends in this sort of situation.

[00:02:57]Uh, the tornado warning remains in effect until 4:00 this afternoon. There we go, right there. Go to the basement or lowest floor possible. Move to an interior room away from windows and doors. Um, cover head and neck with blankets and pillows. Just a recommendation from the folks uh, at the National Weather Service here. Um, what does a tornado warning mean? Well, a tornado has either been sighted or radar indicates there may be a tornado on the ground. And in this sort of situation a tornado has been sighted. So, we have a confirmed report from a weather spotter here. Uh, I want to show you some rotation tracks here.

[00:03:31]This is not a uh, product I typically show during our our our broadcast, but uh, this is um, a product from uh, the radar. Right now, we're using the radar out of Gray Maine. And uh, what we're seeing here is a rotation track basically running right up through Mercer, Skowhegan, and up to about Hartland. This is the cell that we're primarily concerned with right here. So, this one has showcased some rotation and we were just talking about this in the weather office about a half hour ago that this this cell did showcase some rotation as it came through Farmington and heading right up into southern Somerset County. So, if you're just joining us here on CBS 13 or Fox 23, we'll get you back to your program in a moment. Uh there's the brand new severe thunderstorm warning for the one in Harmony and Hartland.

[00:04:14]Uh it looks The good news is it looks like the cell from Skowhegan and Cornville is weakening a little bit right now. Appears to be weakening.

[00:04:21]Let's take a look at the latest and yeah, the This is um a product I typically don't show during our broadcast, either. This is what we call velocity. Winds moving toward and away from the radar. Uh right now, we're not seeing a a tremendous amount of rotation, but I I believe the reason the weather service has issued this tornado warning is not necessarily because the radar is indicating a tremendous amount of rotation, it's because uh a National Weather Service spotter has spotted a tornado. So, an an eyewitness has spotted a tornado. I don't know any more information other than that at this point. So, let's take a look from the weather service see if we get any new information from this. The severe thunderstorm warning remains in effect until 4:00 p.m.

[00:05:05]Yep, the source is a weather spotted confirmed tornado.

[00:05:10]So, I would imagine that there will be some photos of this coming in soon and we'll get those uh for you soon, but if you're in the warning area, um the best thing to do is stay indoors.

[00:05:21]Get to the lowest floor possible. A basement or an interior room is a great uh set is a great place to be in a situation like this. Uh lowest floor or sturdy building, avoid windows. If you are outdoors, in a mobile home, or in a vehicle, move to the closest substantial shelter and protect yourself from flying debris.

[00:05:43]So, if you're just joining us again, And is for a tornado warning. Just to put it in perspective for you, tornado warnings in southern Somerset County. There are no other warnings in effect in southern and central Maine. This is on the extreme northern edge of our viewing area. I know a lot of folks want to get back to their program.

[00:05:58]Uh it's our mission here at CBS 13 and Fox 23 to keep everyone safe. So, we're going to stay with us for probably another 14 minutes or so until the warning expires. Um you know, we want to make sure everybody's safe in this sort of situation. This is very unique.

[00:06:15]Usually we have radar confirmed uh radar indicated tornadoes in tornado warnings, but this is a spotter confirmed. Uh and the good news is this is weakening. I My hope is the weather service drops the warning very quickly on this one.

[00:06:31]Um as this continues to weaken. This is again is a is a product I very rarely show during my evening broadcast right here.

[00:06:39]Uh what we're seeing right here is wind moving away from the radar um in the brighter reds uh at a faster speed than uh the darker reds. This is a poor sampling right now just because the radar beam is so high from uh from Gray, Maine. But, if we if there is a tornado, it's probably in the north side of Skowhegan. That's uh my my guess right now just based on what we're looking at. So, that's what we call a velocity. Um I briefly want to go back to the rotation tracks for a minute. All right, we have some new information from the rotation tracks.

[00:07:14]Uh looks like it's the best rotation uh looks to be just on the north side of Skowhegan now. We're running right up into um between Harmony and Hartland.

[00:07:24]So, that's the area in southern Somerset County that we have the greatest chance for uh for seeing a tornado. And this is a a product we use quite often right here. These are our storm tracks. The in addition to the potential for a tornado or funnel cloud here, we also have the chance for some hail. So, hail is a possibility in some of these cells.

[00:07:46]Let's take a look at the uh hail forecast here. Yep, uh close to 3-in 3/10 of an inch diameter hail. That's not why we're on the air right now, though. We're on the air for this potential for a tornado. In fact, we have a confirmed sighting of a tornado. We're not exactly sure where. Uh we've got our whole weather team here working on that. We've Ryan Munn, our meteorologist, um Hannah Shiehy's in the uh digital studio, and she has updates on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube going on right now if you want to check her out. Uh but we're going to stay with this forecast uh this warning for about another 12 minutes until it expires. There is just ahead of this a severe thunderstorm warning that's in effect right now for the Harmony area. And we have that tornado warning and on the north side of Skowhegan, which has been issued for the potential for a tornado, a observer-sighted tornado, which is very unusual. We typically don't see that right here.

[00:08:42]Um just to put into perspective for you, the the line of showers and thunderstorms over southern Maine, those have moved offshore. The primary concern going forward has been central Maine to the western mountains of Maine to northern Maine. And the atmosphere is still primed for the potential for severe weather in that area right here, but the primary area of concern, this one popped up out of nowhere. There we go. That's great news. All right, it looks like they just dropped the warning. The primary area of concern was for this cell right near Skowhegan. This did not even have a severe thunderstorm warning on it. There are no severe thunderstorm watches. There are no tornado watches in effect. But, the reason this was issued, and I feel very confident about this, was it was a spotter-confirmed tornado. Somebody sighted the tornado dropping out of the cloud and touching the ground. I would imagine we'll get some photos coming into CBS 13 and Fox 23 very soon. All right, um we still have 10 minutes uh the 10-minute they dropped the warning 10 minutes um with 10 minutes left, I should say on the warning. So great news there.

[00:09:40]We're going to get you back to your program in about 30 seconds here. I just want to briefly just tell folks where we still have some issues. The s- severe thunderstorm warning remains in effect right now over towards Dexter, Harmony. That severe thunderstorm warning remains in effect for that area right now until Let's take a look. Until 4:15.

[00:09:59]The weather service is keeping the tornado possible tag on that. So that would totally make sense as we've seen some rotation in that cell. But this is excellent news, folks. We have the tornado warning dropped. It has been canceled for the Skowhegan area in southern Somerset County. So fantastic news there. All right.

[00:10:19]Without further ado, folks, I guess what we're going to do is we're going to get you back to your program. We'll have many more updates coming up tonight on CBS 13 at live at 5:00. And we'll have more updates coming up on Fox 23 at 10:00 as well. All right. Well, take care. See you then.

[00:10:36]I didn't realize I was back on there.