Some severe weather occurred in Maryland on Monday, leading to a great deal of property damage, as well as this headline:

Possible Tornado Tosses Cars, Destroys Building, Knocks Over Trees

Yes, it was possibly a tornado, but let us not be hasty. After all, other possibilities include “Sudden Gravity Malfunction”, or perhaps even “Angry Wizard”.

For what it’s worth, the Weather Channel was less equivocal about this, using a much better headline:

Likely Tornado Flips Cars, Downs Trees in Salisbury, Maryland

There may not be 100% certainty of a tornado, but we can be pretty sure, and “likely” sounds a lot better than “possible”.

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