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Community Corner

Could A Joplin-like Tornado Strike Here?

The National Weather Service says it is unlikely.

More than 100 confirmed dead. Thousands of buildings, including homes, destroyed. A hospital evacuated, schools and business shuttered.

The scene in Joplin, MO, where a tornado with winds estimated from 190 to 198 miles per hour touched down Sunday and flattened large portions of the city, is dominating television and Internet news with horrifying images of a town decimated by Mother Nature.

As rescue workers search for survivors and the nation looks on, it is difficult to ignore one creeping question: Could something like what happened in Missouri happen in Maryland?

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“Unlikely,” said Bryan Jackson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. “But it does happen.”

Jackson said there have been two cases of major tornadoes in Maryland in the last 15 years–an EF4 storm in Frostburg on June 2, 1998, and another EF4 on April 28, 2002, in La Plata.

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In the La Plata storm, 14 people were killed. There were no reported deaths from the Frostburg storm.

The National Weather Service has rated the Joplin tornado as an EF4 storm, too. Tornadoes are rated on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, which takes into account estimated wind speed and the likelihood of physical damage.

Mike Pigott, a meteorologist at Accuweather in State College, PA, said the chance for such devastating storms is significantly lower in Maryland because it does not have the same atmospheric instability as areas in the country’s plains. The atmosphere is sometimes twice as unstable there, he said.

“The higher instability you have, the stronger updraft you have,” Pigott said. “The cold air from Canada [combined with] the very warm and moist air from the gulf,” contribute to instability, he said.

Though atmospheric instability is the greatest cause of severe weather like what Joplin experienced, Pigott said some terrestrial factors can come into play, also.

“It’s really tough when you’re [a tornado] rumbling through a lot of trees in the Northeast [to maintain strength],” he said. “In the plains it’s very treeless, very flat, no mountains, no hills.”

There have been 17 tornadoes in Maryland this year, according to the National Weather Service, . The most recent storms touched down in Frederick and Washington counties on May 17. None were rated stronger than EF1, which includes storms with wind speeds ranging from 73 to 112 miles per hour.

This interactive map shows the approximate location and strength of all tornadoes that have touched down in Maryland this year.

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