Today features the first state-wide chance of severe thunderstorms this season and I've posted a number of maps on Facebook which say the line of storms currently in Kentucky should move across our state starting early afternoon and ending after dark. Best guess on when they will arrive here in State College is 4-5 pm, and wouldn't you know it: I have an all-afternoon meeting. Given that MeteoMadness Man is also in that meeting, Murphy's Weather Law predicts that the storms will break big and break early. But I have all my chasing equipment here and I'm ready to go.

For further updates on the storm, Friend me on Facebook & join the Pennsylvania Storm Chasers Group there; I will not have access to my blog when I chase. If you know other weather observers, storm spotters or storm chasers in our state, please invite them to the Group.

After this cold front comes through, there will be a massive temperature drop. The AccuWeather.com forecast for State College predicts 75 today and 38 tonight, a 37-degree diurnal variation, nearly as high as the impressive one I experienced in March.

In other news, I'm on my third attempt (in as many years) to secure some shade on my porch at home (because we have a southeast-facing, no-trees-for-miles problem). For some reason State College is unusually windy during the daytime, almost year round - something that I've talked above before (along with a lot of cloudiness). Sure, it was windy almost everywhere in the Northeast yesterday -- as of 10 AM, 135 stations were gusting over 40 mph and over 500 stations were gusting over 30 mph. But imagine how windy it was then, and apply that to almost every day of the year and you can see why I can't get a canopy, gazebo, umbrella or anything else to stay attached to my deck. I just bought a $100 replacement canopy for a $200 gazebo and it's already torn two straps off of it. I'm beginning to think that there is some sort of wind-tunnel effect going on in my community. Now I have this line of thunderstorms tonight to worry about, so I'm off to Lowes to buy some zip ties.

It's not just my house though, here are some graphs of the maximum wind each day at AccuWeather HQ. (You won't see this data online because the stations are sampled infrequently and don't transmit the maximum wind gusts). Let's take a look at the last three weeks. Note that we've only been under 20 mph for wind gusts a couple days.

Here's a graph of the last 3 days through this time yesterday - notice the diurnal variation in the winds, where, as soon as the sun comes up, the winds spike up to over 30 mph, then fall again at sunset. This is because the ground heating up starts air moving around our local mountains.

Unfortunately, when you look at nationwide average wind speeds, Central Pennsylvania doesn't stand out, but State College is mysterious missing from the list. If you look at a wind power map, which combines average speeds with duration or consistency, it's clear that the mountains are providing Centre County with much higher winds than surrounding areas (but the entire Appalachian chain has a lot of wind too).

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