Michigan War Zone Video, Pennsylvania Lightning

Saint Clair Shores, Michigan (near Detroit) had a rough time with the storms yesterday. Check out this video showing a car on fire (thanks to a downed power line) and roads covered with dozens of fallen trees - it looks like a war zone! This is the most impressive non-tornadic weather video I've seen in a long time. Just incredible.

The storms in that area were indeed impressive on radar yesterday afternoon. Winds were clocked to 75 mph at MacComb, MI and over 100,000 lost power.

Radar snapshot from (formerly known as Enhanced Radar)

By the time they got to Pennsylvania, they had decreased in intensity except for one strong cell east of Pittsburgh, which had dBZ levels over 65, hail to 1.75" in diameter (according to the radar) and frequent lightning. Local storm chaser Ron "R-Factor" Shawley took thesepics at his normal chase spot Chickoree Mountain, PA:

I tried to stay up for the storms here in State College, Pennsylvania, home of AccuWeather HQ [Google Map], and in fact watched them coming in from about 10 to 11:30 PM, then gave up, went home, went to bed, and in a classic storm chaser fashion, was awokened an hour later by loud thunder. Despite the audio frenzy, the lightning was mostly cloud-to-cloud and widely scattered, not worth getting the cameras out.