High Wind Reports With Central Pennsylvania Thunderstorms

In our first significant thunderstorm event of the season, storms raced across the state from southwest to northeast yesterday trailing high wind reports behind. Outside of a storm that ran north of the line through Clearfield County, lightning was widespread but not intense, nor was hail, owing to low dew points. Here's a radar loop (data was missing from 2-4pm):

Down in Vinco, PA, Local storm chaser Ron "R-Factor" Shawley got a video including one lightning strike (you can hear me talking to him on the phone at the beginning).

The big story was the high winds - map of spotter reports shown below. There was a good bit of tree damage - something you would see during a typical summer thunderstorm situation.

Ron experienced high winds and heavy rain north of Johnstown, but by the time the storms got up here, they looked weaker on radar -- and there was no visible gust front associated with them, so I sat down to dinner. I was then surprised to hear the winds kick up to 50 mph as measured by my rooftop weather station for several minutes. It was pretty intense. For perspective, wind speeds at or over 50 mph have only occurred 4 times since I installed it in 2006, according to my records. I also took this video of my canopy threatening to take flight:

The truth was, if I would have looked at the Storm-Relative Velocity Radar I would have seen what the Reflectivity Radar didn't show, which was 26-36-knot winds heading in my direction. A reminder that, without looking at the velocity data, you never really know what's headed for you. I've seen dozens of weak reflectivity storms roll through with no wind but this one really surprised me (my house is at the arrow tip below).

We also got that big temperature drop as advertised. Yesterday afternoon my station showed 84 degrees; this morning (16 hrs later) it was 39 (a drop of 45 degrees!), and now (24 hour-change) it's only 40. Another way of looking at it: Compared to normal I was +29 for my high yesterday; -15 today. Snow is falling in parts of Pennsylvania and Ohio this morning... 7-8 inches has fallen in Wisconsin & Michigan. UPDATE: I saw snowflakes at my house this evening. I'm not sure I seriously doubt that I have ever experienced a day in the 80s followed by 30s with snow.

You can read other reports from the storm on the Facebook Pennsylvania Storm Chasers Group (event 2010-02).