After the drought, Pennsylvania storm season is here
They say when it rains, it pours. Here in Pennsylvania, after experiencing months with almost no rainfall and a complete lack of typical thunderstorm activity, the last 10 days have brought daily rainfall and storms. On Aug. 10, lightning struck a tree near AccuWeather HQ here in State College, Pennsylvania:
The next day, it struck near the house of AccuWeather forecaster Bob Larson, who lost most of his appliances to the power surge. Both days showed thousands of lightning strikes in Centre County alone -- here's Aug. 10's strikes:
I took a lot of lightning video those nights but haven't gotten it all processed yet.
The storms culminated in a severe weather outbreak yesterday, Aug. 16, that brought damaging storms across the state (statewide summary below).
Of particular note yesterday were the severe storms that passed over the York County area around 4 p.m. The radar loop below shows reflectivity, velocity, echo tops, storm reports and warnings between 3:30 and 4:30 p.m.
Storm Chaser J. Marc Harrison met the storms on the Susquehanna River in Columbia, Pennsylvania. Here's a photo as the line of storms moved over York:
The storms were fairly impressive with heights over 50,000 feet, as shown by the 3-D radar, and backed up by the echo tops.
The storm caused a handful of reports of damage in the area -- trees and wires down. The pictures below were taken in Maytown, Pennsylvania:
This damage was probably from straight-line winds, but there was a slight hint of rotation over the Maytown area, according to local radar (velocity and normalized rotation product):
There were two dozen severe thunderstorm warnings issued, and 54 spotter reports filed, and widespread lightning strikes, but the northeastern and northwestern parts of the state didn't get much of either.
Lightning was also notably absent here in Centre County and some other spots in central Pennsylvania, even for those who were under warnings (lightningmaps.org)
The entire state got some rain, with most of the state seeing more than an inch and a half. Some places got nearly 3 inches.
