After Tuesday's massive storms, the National Weather Service did not immediately hit the streets to determine whether any tornadoes were to blame for the widespread damage in several areas.
NBC10 Chief Meteorologist Glenn "Hurricane" Schwartz said there's a good reason for that: The damage was so widespread there wasn't any one location to pinpoint early on to inspect for evidence of a tornado.
"You can see on the damage reports from yesterday ... there are so many of them, and they're so widespread across the area, so many reports of 70 mph winds, so many reports of multiple trees down, that basically, you don't know where to go to search for any kind of potential tornado," Schwartz said.
"You look at every report, so what are they going to do? Are they going to go to 200 different neighborhoods and look around?" Schwartz explained. "So what they're going to do is they've contacted the local officials, asked them to take a look at the areas that have been damaged the most, and see if there's anything suspicious."
Schwartz said there are usually some telltale signs that indicate whether straight-line winds or a tornado may be the culprit of storm damage.
"With tornadoes, generally you'll have trees blown down in different directions," he said. "With straight-line winds, they'll all be blown down the same way, and sometimes it's obvious it's a straight-line wind, so you don't need to call the Weather Service and have them come out there."
