Photos, Radar: A Hail of a Storm For NYC, Philly

UPDATE: The NWS has confirmed an EF-1 tornado in Lancaster County, and the damage aerials are impressive (see video below, coming soon). ABC6 has more photos and video, including a cool timelapse of the storm overtaking the Philly skyline.

UPDATE: WGAL.com has a lot of photos & some video from the storm (thanks Patrick!). The State College NWS office promises a storm survey later today to determine if the damage was from a tornado.

ORIGINAL POST: If you were watching J's Breaking News at right (or following my Twitter feed at right) you'd know that severe thunderstorms swept through eastern Pennsylvania through Philadelphia and into New York City last night, peppering the ground with hail as large as golf balls.

Here are some hail photos from our viewers. Frank Strait (PREMIUM | PRO) experienced the storm in York, PA and will have some pictures and details on his blog later today.

LATEST MODERATORS PICKS: TAG "HAIL"

Reports from NWS spotters indicated multiple reports of golf-ball-sized (1.75") hail and winds felling trees and destroying 5 mobile homes near Lancaster. There were even two funnel cloud reports, one 2 miles south-southeast of Dallastown, PA and another 3 miles west of Codorus, both in York County. Click below to see radar shots from when the storms were near Reading and Allentown, and also as they were approaching NYC.

EASTERN PA LOOP | IMAGES: Reading & Allentown | York | New York City

Here's a Raw Video of the damage in York County, there is another one at right in the Raw Video Player.

A cursory glance at forecasts issued yesterday tells me that the storms were a bit of a surprise, in my opinion. The SPC [JessePedia]didn't have the area in (even) a Slight Risk, saying in their forecast summary Sunday morning "POTENTIAL FOR FAST MOVING STORMS AND POSSIBLY ISOLATED DAMAGING WINDS AND/OR HAIL INTO THE EARLY EVENING." Although our Eastern Story also predicted thunderstorms yesterday, we didn't catch on to the hail threat either. Henry (PREMIUM | PRO) says he is going to talk more about the evolution of the storms later today.