Blog reader Michael wrote in with an interesting story from Saturday night's storms in southern New York State. It seems he had a wooden *inside* door buckled and cracked by the storm. The outside door to the same room was not latching and was open half an inch but blocked by an ironing board. Nothing else in the room was disturbed (much to his surprise after noting that the outside door jamb was six feet from its former location after the storm). Below is a photo of the cracked frame.

Mike says his station registered 48 mph winds but he doesn't have a record of the pressure - and he asked if that might have been the culprit, or was it the winds? The nearest other weather station that reported high winds or unusually pressure was the official station at Elmira, New York. This instrumentation, while reporting winds to nearly 50 mph and a "rapid" pressure spike of about 0.08" in 30 minutes (see data here or graph below), indicated conditions typical of a strong approaching thunderstorm and these numbers weren't as strong as those observed the other day in Chicago the other day (where I defined "rapid" pressure rises).

Below is what the radar showed that night. Even though Michael's house was near the tip of this radar signature, which is probably a Bow Echo [WikiPedia], the radar wind velocity images showed nothing exciting and I'm hesitant to use that data anyway unless the location is very near the center of the radar, because the beam tips upwards and misses what's going on at the surface outside of a small area around the dome.

THE STORM OVERTAKES MICHAEL'S HOUSE
DOWNLOAD RADAR & VELOCITY LOOPS

We can also look at Skywarn reports submitted during the storms. There were a handful in that area, none very near Michael's house, and only one with a wind measurement (60 mph to his north):

Mike also asked the question: "Would it have helped to crack the windows in this situation?" That brings to mind, of course, an old tornado myth that one should open windows before a tornado. SIDEBAR: The idea that one should open or crack windows before a tornado is something that The Tornado FAQ says is "useless and dangerous." According to The Tornado Project, this belief was disproved in 1977 when scientists pointed out that modern buildings have plenty of cracks, outside pipes and ventilation systems that will equalize the pressure, so your house won't explode during a tornado. In fact, you'll almost never find a different atmospheric pressure reading outside a building vs. inside, which is why the barometer is the only instrument that can be house indoors. And remember... wouldn't your house and window have to make it through the tornado's wall, with 100-300 mph winds and flying debris, before your house would be inside the tornado to be AT the low pressure point? It certainly would.

In any case, I'd have to blame this one not so much on the storm as on Michael's house producing its own suction points and slamming his door enough to break it. While I'm no Physics expert, and I can't exactly explain it, I've noticed in my home that, when the doors in the garage are open, one will often slam shut with nearly enough force to break it, even when winds are as low as 20 mph. This is, I would guess, because houses (and especially rooms) are pretty small in the scheme of things, and wind forcing itself into an open door (or a door that won't latch) fills up a room pretty quickly, causing suction to slam the opposite door (and it doesn't take much -- doors are made to move easily). Now here comes the interesting question -- if Michael produced more suction points by opening or cracking the windows in the room, would that have prevented the door from breaking? It's hard to say. Maybe. And maybe that's how the whole tornado myth got started in the first place. I'm going to officially file this one under the "unsolved" tab, submit it to Mythbusters [JessePedia], and I'd also expect a furrowed brow if Michael tries to explain all this to his insurance company. :)

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