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Forecast prompts early dismissals at some school districts, but damaging storms elude Philly

The worst of the storms passed west and north of Philly. Meteorologists say they were "surprised" about the school decisions.

A woman hurries away from Dilworth Park as a thunderstorm dumps heavy rain last August. Strong storms are expected Monday afternoon.
A woman hurries away from Dilworth Park as a thunderstorm dumps heavy rain last August. Strong storms are expected Monday afternoon.Read moreELIZABETH ROBERTSON / Staff Photographer

Malvern Borough shut down its government. Several school districts decided to send kids home early or cancel after-school programs.

But forecasts of severe thunderstorms accompanied by hail, wind gusts perhaps up to 60 mph, and maybe even a stray tornado Monday afternoon didn’t quite follow the script. In fact, at the time that schools normally would let out, sunshine had broken through the clouds in much of the region.

Shortly before 6 p.m. a storm bearing heavy rains crossed the region, but the weather service said it had “weakened below severe limits.”

It was not the first time that a severe-thunderstorm watch, which was in effect until 8 p.m., had an uneventful outcome. However, in this case the weather people professed to be nonplussed by the reaction to forecasts that aren’t exactly rare in late spring and summer around here.

“We’ve seen that kind of thing before,” said Carl Erickson, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc. “I’m not sure what got everyone all rattled.”

He said he couldn’t recall an instance in which schools had decided to send kids home early because of a thunderstorm threat.

“I was a little surprised myself,” said Trent Davis, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Office in Mount Holly. He called it “definitely a new thing for me.”

It was also a new one among his colleagues, he added.

In the case of Fort Washington Elementary School in the Upper Dublin School District, the early dismissal decision likely had something to do with the wrath of the remnants of Ida in September. The school was heavily damaged by an Ida-spawned tornado, was closed from Sept. 1 to Jan. 19, and students and staff still are dealing with PTSD.

Among the other school districts that announced early closings were the Radnor Township, Tredyffrin/Easttown, Abington, and Upper Perkiomen districts.

Typical of what other districts posted, Tredyffrin/Easttown cited “severe inclement weather forecasted for this afternoon, including high winds and hail.”

Philadelphia and other districts also canceled after-school activities, and the Borough of Malvern imposed a government shutdown Monday afternoon, posting a “Sorry, we’re closed” sign on its website.

However if the school buses or the government employees of Malvern had any issues Monday afternoon, they likely weren’t weather-related.

The government’s Storm Prediction Center advised that “supercells,” thunderstorm systems capable of spinning up rotating winds that can spawn tornadoes, were possible along the I-95 corridor from Washington, D.C., to New York City and throughout New Jersey.

But the first batch of storms bypassed the Philadelphia region to the north and west, said Davis. The weather service’s nearest severe-weather report came from Berks County.

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Conditions were particularly volatile Monday, the weather service said, with an approaching cold front, a major pulse of moisture, and the air highly unstable and energized.

The region, however, was spared the worst, said AccuWeather’s Erickson.

He said the region could expect “beautiful weather” on primary day, and it wasn’t a campaign promise.

Staff writers Michaelle Bond, Kristen A. Graham, and Michael Klein contributed to this article.