A tornado may have touched down in Delaware, and the Philly area could see snowflakes

The National Weather Service on Tuesday was investigating whether a squall-line-incited tornado, or perhaps two, touched down in central Delaware late Monday night.

The agency said investigators were looking at two potential tornadic paths from the Maryland Eastern Shore into rural Kent County.

While those were the only tornado suspects, strong winds did take down trees and wires across the region. A gust of 60 mph was measured at Philadelphia the weather service, and 74 mph in Avalon.

The downpours and very loud winds shut off during the early-morning hours as the region underwent yet another seasonal change, with temperatures tumbling from the 60s to the 30s.

Some places could see snowflakes by early evening, said Ray Martin, a lead meteorologist with the weather service Mount Holly office.

But this is not expected to precipitate another $59 million cleanup in Philly: The high-end amount would be a “dusting.”

“Winter’s back for a little while,” said Martin, and a moderating trend is due later in the week.

No further trauma is evident in the computer models, and the region evidently caught some luck Monday.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center hoisted tornado watches late Monday morning for the entire Philly region, all of Delaware, and most of New Jersey as the atmosphere was exhibiting unusual volatility.

But shortly after 6 p.m. the center took down the watches.

What didn’t happen?

Strong thunderstorms develop when the air is said to be unstable, allowing warm air to rise rapidly over cooler air and igniting convective storms. However, during the day Monday, on-and-off rain and clouds “just kind of stabilized” the atmosphere, Martin said.

Philly ended up with about a half inch of rain, and more than half of that fell by 9 a.m.

“With all those clouds and light rain around,” he said, severe weather “wasn’t going to happen.”

The stronger storms and gusts didn’t arrive until very late Monday night with the arrival of the squall line.

The next chance for rain would be during the weekend (of course), but by then temperatures should have moderated.

Temperatures the next two mornings are forecast to fall into the 20s, and spend most of Wednesday afternoon in the 30s. The highs are expected to return to the seasonal 50s on Thursday and Friday, and maybe the low 60s Saturday.

As for when winter is going to give it up, no big warm-up is imminent and some temperature jumpiness is likely to continue, Martin said.

“We had such a cold and relatively snowy winter,” he said, “it’s going to take a little bit to break out of that pattern.”