Central Pennsylvania Severe Thunderstorms April 26th
Severe thunderstorms rolled through Centre County, home of AccuWeather HQ [Google Map] Tuesday afternoon and evening. I chased several storms and got a few good photos, but due to a series of unfortunate events, from being unprepared and getting stuck at Wal-Mart, to maxing out a video card, to losing cell signal and a dead battery, I didn't get the shots that I wanted. There were two main storms...
STORM #1: SUPERCELL THUNDERSTORM MOVES NORTHWEST OF TOWN
On the radar image above, I'm at the big "X" and Henry Margusity was at the small "x" when he took these pictures of scud rising into the storm:
I went up to Skytop Mountain because I figured it would get me closest to the storm, at which point I saw something very similar, plus a huge rain shaft:
After the storm passed, I was lucky enough to get this shot of a rainbow to my east from the top of the mountain:
The evening storm I met on Nixon Road. There was an impressive gust front and some scud rising up, but most of it went to my north.
This is what it looked like on radar as it arrived:
STORM #2: BOW ECHO LINE MOVING ENE
There were over 17,000 lightning strikes in Centre County and the Pennsylvania area; however many were obscured by rain. My best lightning video was after the evening storm passed, and I haven't had a chance to go through the tape yet.
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