Severe Weather in March... A somber reminder

It was March 6, 2004 when a strong cold front blew through Baltimore's Inner Harbor with wind gusts to 55mph. Severe Storm criteria for a warning is 58mph. So no warning was issue until it actually hit the Harbor. Then a Special Marine Advisory was posted, but the accident already happened....
Ft. McHenry Water Taxi Accident
We stayed on TV for 7 hours while the search/rescue/and recovery took place. Our news crews did a great job with the reporting- but this hit too close to home. There was nothing we could do to warn anyone. It was a Saturday afternoon and who was watching TV at the time while temperatures were near 70F? By next year's anniversary- I hope to have a clip of our coverage from that storm. For now, here is the video of Storm Stories from The Weather Channel covering that event. I was honored to be included in this episode, but saddened by the actual event we had to report...There is a limit of 10 minutes for videos on YouTube- so I cut it into 2 parts. Just hit the menu button or wait until it's finished. For those of you who can not view this view from your computer- I am sorry- but it's the easiest way to post videos for this page.


I am away from my personal computer with files from that storm, but we did clock 55mph winds just a mile away at Sparrow's Point HS. The gust at BWI (5 miles away) was 47mph.If this storm had hit 5 miles north or south- it would have been a non event. Just a few garbage cans blown over. In fact Saturday's storm was stronger, which proves that timing and location can be more critical than the storm itself.
Tomorrow: Record heat in Baltimore again proving my theory of extremes...