Hail, Funnel Cloud Hits Western Mass.

Hail, Funnel Cloud Hits Western Mass.

By Matthew Campbell

"I could see the clouds forming, I could see the sky was different than anything I had seen before," says Sunderland restaurant owner, Deeac Tiley.

Tiley may have been the only person in Sunderland to capture Thursday's funnel cloud. The cloud is one of the things responsible for triggering a tornado warning earlier Thursday afternoon.

"I filmed some of it, then thought nothing of it," Tiley says.

Tiley was working the smoker in front of his Sunderland BBQ restaurant when the first warnings came through.

"My wife and my manager came out and said you should probably get inside, because someone just called and said there were tornado warnings for Sunderland," he says.

None of them made landfall, but after one did touch down two years ago in Wendell, the warnings are never taken lightly.

"When I saw the clouds coming down and pieces breaking off, it looked like it wasn't able to form and touch down," he says.

So, out came the camera, capturing the dramatic dark skies. But just a couple hours later, Round 2: another storm was on our doorstep. Dark clouds in Westfield meant there was hail in Blandford.

"It's the first time I've seen hail in a long time. We don't usually get that out here," says Danny Coffey, a Blandford resident.

"It was pretty good sized, I mean, it was like the size of small candies, but there were big piles out here in the parking lot, they were pretty much everywhere," he says.

Reports have the hail measured around 3 inches deep.

While the latest storm may have shaken us up, there's no reports of any widespread damage.

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Current Temp 87 °F
A Few Clouds
Wind : From the South at 13 Gusting to 29 MPH
Humidity : 47 %
Pressure : 30.05" (1017.5 mb)
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