Pennsylvania Thunderstorms: Lightning, Damage Photos
Severe thunderstorms ripped through Pennsylvania last night, and I got a few photos here in State College, Pennsylvania, home of AccuWeather HQ [Google Map]. I'll expand this entry later today to include radar loops and more photos.
Henry had told me to look out for a developing storm just before 6 PM, so I put the video camera on the porch and got this screen grab of a close lightning strike that hit way outside of the main rain area:
So he and I went out to view the next storm as it came in, because it was looking pretty good on radar, but the southern end of it, which was approaching, suddenly disappeared before our very eyes. This was what was left of it as it headed towards the State College (University Park) Airport. Note the scud lowering.
After 11 PM, more storms moved up towards me from the south, and I took a bunch of lightning pictures from my Canon DSLR camera (by Fumfie.com) that I reviewed last week. Using the 30-second exposure setting, it was easy to capture the strikes.
Closer to midnight, a massive shelf or wall cloud moved quickly in front of me -- it was quite scary to see in between the flashes of light. I wanted to capture it on film, so I set the Canon on a shorter exposure - 5 seconds, so the clouds wouldn't get blurry - and hoped for a lightning strike. I got a weak one, and the picture looked like this:
Now: Enter the amazing HDR technology that I have blogged about before. Local storm chaser Ron "R-Factor" Shawley (who got some photos near Johnstown yesterday too) was able to pull and enhanced contrast out of the photo with software, which showed the cloud more clearly at screen right in the picture below (although the picture is exaggerated and strange looking in other parts because of the adjustment). There are several additional shots of the cloud as it moved past me on our Photo Gallery.
HDR can also fix overexposed lightning strikes -- witness this original photo and its HDR companion.
Elsewhere in Pennsylvania, there were dozens of warnings issued; 17 Severe Thunderstorm Warnings and 3 Tornado Warnings were issued by the State College NWS office alone. Here's a map of all the warnings:
Spotter reports or large hail and downed trees were common, especially in the Southeast part of the state, where persistent storms from 6-8 PM caused heavy damage. Below is shown a hail map and wind damage map.
A funnel cloud was sighted near Erie in Crawford county, along with damage, according to Steve Marshall from the Facebook Group "Pennsylvania Storm Chasers" reported.
Here are a few examples from our AccuWeather.com Fans on Facebook, the Facebook Group "Pennsylvania Storm Chasers, and the AccuWeather.com Photo Gallery:
Over 25,000 lightning strikes were detected yesterday afternoon and evening:
