Weather
By Dan Skeldon
Where were you the night of June 29th, 2012? In a way, it’s our local weather equivalent to being asked where you were on the morning of 9/11. And if you were in South Jersey on that Friday night 10 years ago that started hot, sticky, yet eerily quiet, you undoubtedly remember right where you were when one of the most powerful wind storms to ever strike the area rudely awakened many of us just after midnight.
It was the night we all learned a new word: derecho. And while so much happens in 10 years, it’s a night in which the sounds, sights, and scars are as vivid in my memory as if it had just happened. Let’s put that to the test.
Friday June 29th, 2012
2pm: Forecasts called for an intense and likely long-lived squall line of thunderstorms to develop around Chicago and track towards DC by late evening.
6pm: I mentioned this thunderstorm complex on my 5-6pm newscasts on NBC40 , without using the word derecho. It’s a term I knew and I studied in college, but it wasn’t a mainstream word at the time. I did stress that those viewers that had family on Delmarva to warn them of the intense storm potential later that evening. But for South Jersey, the squall line was forecast to stay on the other side of Delaware Bay, with lots of lightning south of Cape May and nothing else expected.
9:30pm: Watching the radars all night, I became concerned that South Jersey may get brushed by the northern edge of this squall line. I inserted thunderstorms in my 11pm forecast on NBC40, and warned of severe thunderstorms with 60mph winds and frequent lightning. I still didn’t foresee the severity of what was coming, nor did any meteorologist that I know of.
11pm: On the air on NBC40 for the 11pm news as the first warnings were issued. But the news ended at 11:30pm, so I took to Facebook and Twitter to follow the storms, still in their infancy as it turned out as the South Jersey radar was about to explode.
12:30am: Watching the core of the derecho slide down from DC to Delmarva as forecast. But the derecho suddenly extended its arm northward, as storms rapidly and violently intensified directly over Cumberland Atlantic counties. Electricity went out at NBC40 as a wall of wind hit our Linwood studios, leaving me in darkness while the winds howled outside. This was before the station had a generator, something we invested in coincidentally as a result of the derecho. Our studios were inside an old Frito Lay warehouse with no windows. So I decided to go outside to my car to get a better view of the roaring storm.
Saturday, June 30th, 2012
12:35am: Big mistake as it turns out. While in my car watching what I thought was a “garden variety” severe thunderstorm, I was truly mortified. For someone who has lived through four direct hurricane strikes and never shied away from a good storm chase, I have never been more scared in my career as a meteorologist or in my life as a whole. What turned out to be likely 100+mph wind gusts uprooted entire trees, caused telephone poles to split in half, and brought power lines down inches from my car. The sky was various shades of a portentous purple, partly from the non-stop lightning strikes, partly from transformers that were blowing, further lighting up the night sky. For the first time ever, I feared for my life, and considered myself to be in danger. With that, I ran as fast as my long legs could carry me into the darkened NBC40 studios. The sounds were still horrifying, but the only sights were from my social media feeds, not yet awake to the scope of what was ongoing outside.
1:30am: The worst had passed, but the rain continued as did the distant lightning. With massive power outages and NBC40 not a viable outlet for communication, I immediately realized that my Facebook and Twitter accounts would be my lifeline, my way to spread information and coordinate a disaster response. I didn’t sleep a wink the rest of the night. Or the weekend for that matter. And the flood of social media posts began.
3:45am: It took me 50 minutes to make the trip home from Linwood to Ocean City, a trip that normally takes 12 minutes in the dead of night. Navigating my way through so many downed trees and power lines in the dark of night, I fully realized how bad this would look come the light of day.
6:00am: The sun rose on South Jersey, and revealed the true scope of the disaster the derecho delivered. Though those that somehow slept through it, or the tens of thousands of tourists that were about to drive through it on their way to the shore for the weekend, had no idea. The true power of Mother Nature simultaneously shocks, scares, and inspires me, still ‘til this day.
Meteorologist Dan Skeldon has a degree in meteorology from Cornell University. He has forecasted the weather in South Jersey for the last 18 years, first on the former television station NBC40 and then on Longport Media radio. Dan has earned the American Meteorological Society Seal of Approval for Broadcast Meteorologists, and now does television broadcasts on WFMZ-TV in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley.
