Radar, Video From Central PA Storms

UPDATE: See the Comment below for a link to a video of damage in Blair County. Yesterday might be considered the stormiest day so far this year in Central PA -- though that's sad considering the time of year. We had a massive lightning and hail storm move northeast of Johnstown, then it developed a supercell-like storm with a hook echo on the south side of the precip, moving through Huntingdon County.

Local storm chaser Ron "R-Factor" Shawley took these pics at his normal chase spot Chickoree Mountain, PA:

Incredible pics for here in the East. Ron then moved down the road looking to the east to observe the storms as they moved forward, where he encountered torrential rain and small hail as the storm grew in intensity...

After dark (from the same location) he was able to video lightning coming out of including the large storm with the Severe Thunderstorm Warning in Huntingdon County. You can see all his pic here and watch his complete video of the lightning in the storms here. Here's a sample video still:

Overall, Ron's area was trounced with hundreds of lightning strikes (his first and second location are shown as "x"s on the map:

You can download* a radar animation of the event here. There were no spotter reports from this storm in Central PA, though much of the area the storm travelled through was rural. One feature that the storm travelled over was Raystown Lake, a bizarre looking 20-mile long winding lake in Huntingdon County. Ron said that some people there did report wind and boat damage. UPDATE: See the Comment below for a link to a video of damage in Blair County.

I observed the storm from here in State College, Pennsylvania, home of AccuWeather HQ [Google Map], but because we were in the rain most of the time, and it's hard to see southwest from here, I don't think I got much good on video.

*Quicktime required. "Save Target As" required for IE.

Comments (1): Justin:

Hey, these thunderstorms were really something. According to our local meteorologist their was a microburst in Williamsburg, Pennsylvanaia. (near altoona) There was video posted on wearecentralpa.com But there was a lot of trees blown down, shingles were blown off roofs. People thought it was a tornado. But yeah it was pretty bad. Tons of lightning and heavy rain... it was like it appeared out of no where. But yeah wearecentralpa.com. I put the link in the url box.

FROM JESSE: Great, thanks!

Posted by Justin | July 22, 2009 9:37 PM