Central PA Severe Thunderstorms 4/26
UPDATE: CLICK HERE FOR MORE MORE PHOTOS, VIDEOS, & PANORAMAS FROM THIS STORM
An unusually strong severe thunderstorm hit State College, Pennsylvania, home of AccuWeather HQ [Google Map] yesterday. In fact I can't remember a more impressive storm in April. The clouds were just terrifying with scud lifting rapidly into the shelf cloud and possibly rotating; it was one of those storms that darkened the sky so quickly that the streetlights came on. It reminded me a lot of the June 8th storms last year (video, photos/radar).
Over 10,000 lightning strikes occurred in two hours in the line of storms, which stretched from the state's northern to southern border, and got its act together to turn severe just before it hit my house shortly after 5 PM. A rotation center moved between my house and the AccuWeather building, both of which had winds near 40 mph and extremely heavy rain which led to street flooding across the city.
Two Severe Thunderstorm Warnings were issued for Centre County quoting penny-sized hail and 60 mph winds; one before it hit my house and one after. The two spotter reports, both wind, didn't do the storm justice, saying only "911 CENTER REPORTED TREE DOWN ON WEST NITTANY AVENUE & ESTIMATED 50 MPH WIND GUST. HEAVY RAINFALL WITH PONDING ON ROADS."
As the clouds began to pass over us, the purple scud clouds revealed "greenage" - a green colored sky often associated with hail.
Despite those 10,000 lightning strikes, I only got this one on film; most were obscured by rain, or the initial storm clouds, or were to my east after the storm, where I don't have a good vantage point.
I'm always hesitant to read too much into the storm-relative velocity radar data, there are a couple red pixels next to blue near my house and Henry's, but then there are some of those all over the map. Certainly when I upload the timelapse cloud video later today, I can see some possible small-scale rotation.
On the base velocity radar data, you can see an area of 36-50 knot winds develop east of me, with 26-36 over my house in the frame before. Since State College is not very far from the radar site (you can see the cone of silence to the northwest of the city on the large image), these winds are probably not too far above the surface. As mentioned above, both the station at my house, and the one at AccuWeather, recorded winds at 38-39 mph.
Here is an image showing the lightning strikes after the storm had passed over my house:
