Meteorologists say a vast majority of the damage was caused by straight line sustained winds between 70 and 80 miles per hour, but there were two storms described as a gustnado.
The National Weather Service told WITN earlier that a small tornado touched down Sunday, causing some of the damage near the airport in Beaufort County. An update from the NWS now says there was evidence of what could best be described as a gustnado in two locations, one in Washington and one near Chocowinity.
A gustnado is a short lived low level rotating cloud that can form in a severe thunderstorm. It is typically associated with a gust front shelf cloud on the leading edge of a severe thunderstorm. It is not considered to be a true tornado.
Meteorologists say a vast majority of the damage was caused by straight line sustained winds between 70 and 80 miles per hour. The Weather Service says for about five minutes they noticed on radar a very small cell in rotation near Washington's airport.
The Weather Service says they did not issue a tornado warning because they already had severe thunderstorm warnings out, which included alerting people to extreme winds.
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