October Surprise: Central PA storms bring lightning, flooding
October has a tendency to overperform when it comes to my photos of severe weather in central Pennsylvania, be it hurricanes, thunderstorms, or snow. This (election) year was no exception, featuring a thunderstorm with amazing lightning on October 20, with severe flooding following overnight. Here's a lightning photo I took that night from a local storm vista:
On October 19th, the SPC severe weather risk for me was listed as "General," but in the next day, it would be upgraded to "Marginal" and then "Slight" (see GIF). I watched the storms move across the southwest part of the state and decided -- very late in the process -- that it might be worth driving down to Indian Rock Overlook in Huntingdon County, as I had done a href="http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/weathermatrix/incredible-october-thunderstorms-in-pennsylvania/38695">six years ago on a similar October night to capture amazing lightning pictures.
October is not generally a stormy month for Pennsylvania, and it takes a good 30 minutes to get to that vista from my house in State College. After I arrived, I was treated to a show with hundreds of lightning strikes hitting the ground. I suffered from only two problems: One, my ISO was set too low on my Canon DSLR and some photos washed out. Two, I was actually to high in elevation for once -- the cloud deck was lower than my location on the mountain. Still, it was a heck of a show. Here is a compilation of all my DSLR shots, and alternate views of the "big one" from my GoPro HERO3, 360fly 4K camera, and iON Dash Camera.
Later that night, a wall of water caused by heavy rain swept through Bellefonte & Milesburg, PA, just up the road from my home and AccuWeather HQ. Even the next morning, water was still flowing as I took this video in the area:
The gradient from little rain (0.5" at my house) to flooding (over 10 inches less than 5 miles away) was extreme.
I gave ABC's Good Morning America permission to use the lightning photo after they asked, but they didn't hear back in time and I don't think they used it.
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