PA Severe Weather Season Goes Out With A Bang
The state of Pennsylvania had an unusually late severe weather outbreak yesterday. This radar looks like something out of May or June!
Nearly 50 Severe Thunderstorm Warnings were issued in the state. Dozens of reports of high winds (to 68 mph), wind damage, and hail (to 1 inch in diameter), were received from NWS Skywarn Spotters.
One place that was particularly hard hit was the Pittsburgh area. Over 50,000 people lost power and a store had its windows blown in (check out that story and a sad picture of a nice red sports car with bricks on top of it on WPVI's site).
One storm not far from State College, Pennsylvania, home of AccuWeather HQ [Google Map] had a hook echo and rotation on radar during two severe thunderstorm warnings and (after the image below was snapped from GRAnalyst) a Tornado Warning.
The storm also dropped hundreds of lightning strikes (image below from RadarPlus). It had dBZ levels as high as 71 in its early stages, something you don't see in this part of the state very much. The storm killed two people in Lycoming County by felling a tree onto their car.
You can read additional reports on the Pennsylvania Storm Chasers Facebook Group, where the photos below were submitted. For details on what happened in the rest of the Northeast, please see our news story "Northeast Hammered by Severe Storms Wednesday."
