The National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm warning Sunday morning for two counties on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, warning of wind gusts up to 60 mph as the storm pushed east.
The warning, issued by the NWS office in Wakefield, Virginia, covers northwestern Wicomico County and northeastern Dorchester County in southeastern Maryland. It is in effect until 9:45 a.m. EDT.
At 8:39 a.m. EDT, radar indicated a severe thunderstorm over Secretary, near Hurlock, moving east at 10 mph. The National Weather Service said the storm’s primary hazard is damaging wind gusts of 60 mph, capable of snapping tree limbs and downing power lines along its path.
Forecasters classified the threat as radar-indicated rather than confirmed by spotters on the ground, a designation the Weather Service uses when storm structure and velocity data meet warning criteria even without a direct visual or damage report.
The Weather Service’s standard guidance for residents in the warned area is to move to an interior room on the lowest floor of a building until the warning expires. The Wakefield office is asking anyone who observes severe weather to report it by calling 757-899-2415, posting to the NWS Wakefield Facebook page, or messaging on X at @NWSWAKEFI.
Severe thunderstorm warnings of this kind are issued when a storm is expected to produce wind gusts of 58 mph or greater, hail of at least one inch in diameter, or both. Sunday’s warning was tied specifically to the wind threat, with no hail criteria cited in the advisory.
The fast-moving nature of the storm — tracking east at 10 mph — means the warned area should see the threat pass within the hour, though additional cells could develop later in the day given the atmospheric instability needed to produce a warning-criteria storm this early in the morning.
Residents across the Delmarva Peninsula, which spans Delaware, Maryland’s Eastern Shore, and part of Virginia, are accustomed to fast-developing summer thunderstorms fueled by heat and humidity off the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean. Sunday’s storm fits that seasonal pattern, arriving in the mid-morning hours as daytime heating began interacting with available moisture.
The National Weather Service continues to monitor conditions across the region and will issue additional warnings if new cells develop or intensify. Residents in Wicomico and Dorchester counties should keep monitoring local alerts through the late morning as the storm clears the area.