Big Hail, Possible Tornadoes in Pennsylvania Sunday

UPDATE 4/29: I realized this morning that some of you might misinterpret the title of this entry -- this is about last Sunday, though if you look at the chatter on the Pennsylvania Storm Chasers Facebook Group, there may be some action this Sunday as well.

Sunday April 25th was the state of Pennsylvania's fourth day under a government-issued "Slight Risk" for severe thunderstorms and we got some - many warnings went out, including the state's first tornado warning of the year. Most of the action was over the southern part of the state.

You can see the radar animation above (download large loop), where you can read other reports from that day. You can (download a large close-up radar loop for details. A Mesoscale Discussion and two Severe Thunderstorm Watches (1 & 2) were issued for the state. Most of the impressive spotter reports were large hail:

A cloud deck stuck to the east of the mountains kept most of the central part of the state in cool, cloudy weather and kept dew points low. As a result, severe weather had a hard time making it into this area and when it did, it was hard to see approach. You can see these low clouds on the visible satellite image below, underneath the towering storms. Click to watch the low clouds persist on a 4-hour loop:

Here in State College, I was stuck under those low clouds and only got one lightning strike on film during heavy rain as a storm passed south of me:

There is a video on Youtube claiming to show a tornado near Ford City, PA (northeast of Pittsburgh) -- it is very interesting at the end, but hard to say without seeing it at normal speed, or additional footage, whether this was inflow or a funnel:

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