Severe storms slam parts of Philadelphia region; NWS to assess damage

Calmer conditions tonight as people clean up from the wild weather that swept through the region. I see the windows start shaking. A tornado touched down in Newark leaving a trail of destruction and trees uprooted. Hail the size of golf balls, smashed car windows. God spared me and the kids. The sheer force of the wind, strong enough to topple a hotel sign, sending it smashing into a parked car. Debris sent flying, scattered around yards and parking lots. In Delaware County, a truly surreal scene. So much hail, it looks like giant snow piles in a winter wonderland. Now at 11, I'm Shari Williams. Rick is off. The big story on Action News tonight is the destruction left behind from the treacherous storms. From Delaware to New Jersey, these storms packed a punch, producing at least one confirmed tornado and possibly another. The National Weather Service will be back out tomorrow to take a closer look. We have live team coverage, but let's begin with Action News reporter Amanda Pitts, who's live in Newark, Delaware, one of the hardest hit areas today, So many examples, Amanda, of this twister. Yeah, that's right, Shari. The sheer power of this tornado is on display all over Newark. But a good example is right here in this office park. This storage container was flipped upside down by that tornado. And while the damage here is extensive, people we've been talking to tonight, some who had close calls themselves, say they're just happy everyone's safe. Never experienced anything like this. A quick and powerful tornado ripped through Newcastle County, Delaware this afternoon. Oh, shoot! Leaving a path of damage in its wake. And I was just like, oh my goodness, I've never seen a tornado in real life. Teresa Badley watched the storm from her room at the Sinesta Suites on Chapman Road in Newark. She was about to leave to run an errand. Something just said, don't leave yet. So I waited, and then I looked out the window, I was like, oh my gosh, it's coming down. So there was the sign there, and it started wavering. I'm like, oh, God, please don't let it fall on my car. And it just said, crash. The sign came down on her car and another, shattering her windshield. Her bumper was even blown down the street. The airbag deployed. It's completely crushed. I was minutes from being inside of the car, minutes. Across the street in the Chapman Woods neighborhood, Kashal Patel's Tesla captured the force of the tornado's winds, sending garbage cans flying. Homes there were damaged and trees were uprooted. Everyone's safe, which is the first, you know, most important thing. I'm starting. And I think now we're just, you know, everyone's cleaning up, helping each other out. The tornado even jumped 95 and continued on to Christiana Hospital, where a medical helicopter was damaged, a rotor blade snapped. As the cleanup continues, everyone is just grateful this wasn't worse. Be grateful for what you have, the people that you have, because things can be replaced, but people can't. And here's another example of the destruction. A tree came down on this car, flattening it like a pancake. Now, the New Castle County EMA tells me, thankfully, no one was injured when this tornado came through. They tell me the National Weather Service will be here first thing in the morning to take a closer look at that damage. We're live in Newark, Delaware tonight. Amanda Pitts, Channel 6 Action News. Shari? Yeah, what an experience for those who are living in this area. Just looking at these images, can't imagine what it was like for them in real time. OK Amanda, thank you. The other major threat from this storm was the hail. This is what it looked like coming down in Gloucester City. There were also parts of Collingswood that were also hit hard from the hail. The solid ice balls collected on people's vehicles and even along the street. But guess what? The wildest scene was actually from Delaware County, where the hail piled up, creating a snow-like scene here. It has been really unimaginable. Crews and Parkside had to use heavy plows and shovels to clear the roads. Action News reporter Caroline Goggins, she's been there experiencing this firsthand. And Caroline, somehow it's still piled up behind you. Yeah, sorry. Here in Delaware County during the storm, they dealt with flooding. They dealt with water rescues. They did not expect to deal with this. I mean, check out all of these pellets of hail. It is just piled and piled and piled up here tonight. It is truly a remarkable sight. This has become the talk of the town here. This is the site that no one expected to see. If you didn't see it with your own eyes or see it like you wouldn't believe it. This may look like video from last winter's archives. But this was taken this afternoon. All of that white stuff the crews were busy clearing is hail. Buckets of it. Piles of hail. 8 feet high on the corners in Delaware County. It fell during the height of the storm in Parkside, Delaware County. Just check out this video from the Razor's Edge barbershop. You can see the hail falling, some sticking and most of it running down Route 352 running like a river down the street. I don't know whether to go kayaking or sledding from Joe Bonsall's barbershop. All the hail went down the hill, landing near Garrison and Upland Roads, the bottom of the hill, all the snow and the water ran down by the school Shut everything down. Even a couple cars got stuck in the mess. When they were moved out, PennDOT crews moved in, working to clear the several inches of hail from this stretch of Route 352. While they did that, neighbors like Steve Herron grabbed a shovel to clear his driveway. How crazy is it to be shoveling hail? Yeah. Have you done that before? No, not to this degree. You know, I've wiped it off the cars and stuff before, but yeah, it's pretty crazy. When the hail was cleared, PennDOT salted and went on their way. Then neighbors came out to capture this sight. It's one that may be talked about for years to come. In my 42 years of emergency services for Delaware County, I've seen a lot of things. Hurricanes, blizzards, snowstorms, floods. I've never in my life have seen anything like this from a hailstorm. Back out here live in Parkside, Delaware County tonight. It feels like we're reporting in the aftermath of a snowstorm, not a hailstorm. Good news to report those two drivers who got stuck in the hail along the stretch of Route 352 earlier today. They are okay. And Shari, I want to tell you guys a really interesting note. If you go even a quarter, half a mile up Route 352 in either direction tonight, this is not the scene. This really feels like this hail was isolated to just this spot. Neighbors here, they have been shoveling their sidewalks, their driveways. We're trying to keep it clean. Clean up all of this mess. Just truly unbelievable. That's the latest live in Parkside, Delaware County tonight. I'm Caroline Goggin, Channel 6 Action News. Sorry. Yeah, quite the scene, leaving us just really dumbfounded. Let's talk more about it. Caroline, thanks. It's really an extraordinary scene. I'm here now with Chief Meteorologist Adam Joseph to talk about what happened. Because really, Adam, it's like so much hail and such a tremendous amount. And then so quickly. And this is... From a thunderstorm. Yes, this is rare. If it was summer extraordinary, giving that it's November and those are scenes that you typically would see out west, let's say, and the higher terrain of Colorado in the Rockies. Let's dissect the system. This was between lunchtime and five o'clock. You see the vigorous spin in the atmosphere. That's what created some of the funnel clouds as those storms blasted along I-95 and points to the north and west. Let's zone in here. We had that Probable tornado that they will also survey tomorrow in Burlington County. The confirmed tornado down in northern Newcastle County. But the hail reports, the hail reports were 40. That was the big ticket item with this system. And let's just take that one storm as example in Delaware County. This right here, 291, 130. There's Logan. This is the Commodore Barry Bridge. That storm was towering up 20,000 to 30,000 feet in the atmosphere. The freezing level today was between 9,000 and 10,000 feet. That is a prime part of the atmosphere to develop hail. We had strong updrafts, that's vigorous rising air in the thunderstorms that took all the moisture in the storm and threw it up into that freezing level, kind of creating all those little hailstones. The storms were moving very slow, 15 to 25 miles an hour. So when the downdrafts were created in the storm, that rapid descent. The hail could not melt as it was coming down, so it piled up due to that storm moving so slowly, and that part of Delaware County just got hammered with that hail. We'll have much more on the aftermath, aftermath of this storm and what's coming our way tomorrow. Bundle up and get ready to be soaked. We'll talk about it all shortly in that weather report. Yeah, I feel like we've already experienced so much in 24 hours. Thankfully, it is quiet and moving forward, even though it's going to be wet. All right, we'll hear more from you in a bit. Adam, thanks.