Central PA Thread

[canderson]

Wow once storm got east of HBG this thing really dried up. Still a storm but man it shrunk a lot.

[ValleyPA]

Relatively quiet here now--just some amazing lightning. And it's a lot cooler.

[Parsley]

Mercersburg was in the direct line - hope everything is ok with them.

Thanks, my wife just spoke to her grandmother in Mercersburg (who has lived there over 50 years) and she said it was one of the strongest storms she can remember in a long time. Luckily, she does have power.

[canderson]

Relatively quiet here now--just some amazing lightning. And it's a lot cooler.

86 when the thump hit, 65 now.

[The Iceman]

Enjoy! It hits fast and moves out quickly. Front/end bump was nice.

meh the storm itself was just ok...just heavy rain/lightning. the front end stuff was nice though.

[Anduril]

Over 60k without power in LSV PPL outage center

[hckyplayer8]

After moving from Lickdale towards FT Indiantown Gap/Grantville swung down on some road that parallels 22 and encountered a rotating wall cloud. Started following it back towards home (Fredericksburg aka Chicken Capital) and got cut off by a down tree. Trying to find a new road we got caught in the hail core and lost the race.

Now back at home, very small damage from what I see. Basketball hoop blown over (one that has a base not affixed to the ground), small limbs snapped off and an occasional street sign blown over.

Power was out briefly but has since been restored.

[NortheastPAWx]

* AT 825 PM EDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED A

LINE OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS CAPABLE OF PRODUCING DESTRUCTIVE WINDS

IN EXCESS OF 80 MPH. THESE STORMS WERE LOCATED ALONG A LINE

EXTENDING FROM 6 MILES SOUTHWEST OF MILLPORT TO BREESPORT TO BARTON

TO NICHOLS TO LE RAYSVILLE TO SOUTH BRANCH TO 11 MILES SOUTH OF NEW

ALBANY TO FAIRMOUNT SPRINGS TO ROCK GLEN...AND MOVING EAST AT 35

MPH.

WTF????

[EasternUSWX]

Wow I got destroyed today. Pics upcoming.

[canderson]

We had straight line winds very string. Huge trees down in Lowe Allen TWP confirmnthe winds - they are huge.

Pretty much all of Harrisburg is without power, including abc27 and it's tower. WITF's tower got hit hard.

[canderson]

Wow, ArtsFest is this weekend Sobieski went down to Rhe riverfront to see what it was like post storm.

There are tents in the river, on the opposite sidewalk, etc. Not pretty.

[Eskimo Joe]

Wow once storm got east of HBG this thing really dried up. Still a storm but man it shrunk a lot.

Yup, I've come to the conclusion that Lancaster County simply does not get big weather. *weenie alert* Despite fantastic sunshine, reaching the convective temp and amazing severe weather parameters, the line just died. *end weenie alert*

[EasternUSWX]

[Parsley]

wow

[wederwarrior]

Wow

Where direction did that last pic's branches fall? Thats crazy

[cast4]

This storm reminds me of the June 24th storm that the philadelphia area got last year.

[EasternUSWX]

[canderson]

We just drove around. Front and Second streets in HBG are closed because all the trees are down. 11/15 in Wormylsburg is closed. 32nd St in Camp Hill is closed. East Penn Dr should be closed but it's one lane open only. Probably the worst I've seen from a storm since moving here in 2006. My house is an oasis of power - only thing within four blocks that has power (our lines are underground and on the capital grid).

Here's a pic of Harrisburg's Front St just now:

[MAG5035]

Those are some pretty impressive storm damage photos, were they taken in the general neighborhood where you live?

[canderson]

More than 100 trees down in Harriaburg according to city officials. Power and phones out all over the city still.

[EasternUSWX]

Those are some pretty impressive storm damage photos, were they taken in the general neighborhood where you live?

No north we chased. Will have chase video later as well. This was about 10 mins north of my house.

More pictures on our analystwxcast FB page.

[EasternUSWX]

[stormitecture]

I got a little confused on how you guys organized things here...I posted the following summary in the Storm Thread:

As Ellinwood mentioned...we nabbed a funnel cloud, which I'm a bit more leaning toward a tornado touching down than Ellinwood, but of course I'm not a professional damage assessor either.

After a number of spots we happen to be turning back north toward a better couplet after what I thought was going to be a new meso ended up being part of a feeder band. We jumped on I-81 north, and proceeded north. There isn't a lot of exits there, so we pushed right up to what I figured was the core, and exited at exit #10 (rt. 914) right there near Marion.

As I drove up the ramp, I could see just on the other side of the ramp, about 1000-2000 feet ahead a couple of fast succession of power flashes (I later found that to likely have come from a nearby electrical substation). We quickly turned right (east) and headed down a few road that took us in a general ESE direction. Stopping at one point, jumped out and observed a funnel cloud. We quickly made a report, and got in the car to keep up with the circulation.

We stayed with it for a while, but it generally started to fade. We continued to see a nice couplet to the north, but it was well entrained within the sheets of rain. We tip-toed north and east for a bit...finally realizing we were done for the day.

Having just witnessed a couple of emergency vehicles go past, we U-turned it and head in the general direction of where we though the "path" of the "assumed" tornado would be if there had been one. We came across a spot where the emergency vehicles had responded but we already leaving the scene (no emergency). What was in that spot was one large fallen tree over the roadway, and another large set of branches that fell on the roadway. Ellinwood took a look and discovered a car in-between...un-damaged (except maybe the mental state of that driver...can you imagine). We took photos...made a second report...and left. Before leaving a PA trooper advised that there was much more "damage" in Marion. That would be our next stop.

After some computer issues (lost the video stream, GPS, etc.), but did manage to return to Marion (redundancy NAV/Electronics...FTW). Upon our return, noted damaged trees, pushed over grasses (with some circular motion indicated...but not CLEARLY) and then found the overturned tracker trailer on I-81...just on the otherside of the ramp. It was at this time we started to put pieces together. The trailer was just the opposite side of the ramp...where I had originally saw some of the power flashes. This was "inline" with where our funnel ended up at our observation point. This is why I believe it was a small and low scale rated tornado. There was some more wide spread damage, but a small portion was more intense than others.

As Ellinwood eluded, there will be video. I've already edited and pushed clips to the Networks (hoping for a sale). I'm working on a public version for uploading to YouTube. Once complete, I will post that here.

My Youtube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/weatherwarriordotnet

(for those that have signatures turned off)

Thanks to those that watched on the live video feed (aka streaming video). Hope it was entertaining, we didn't run audio today...focused on getting a slightly higher quality video image out.

[stormitecture]

The video is complete and uploaded now:

Andrew especially, will recognize some of the spots in the video.

[whiteout]

This pic was from Carlisle just as the big show was rolling in

[canderson]

Here's a quick cell pic I just took of one of the many, many trees down. This is 2nd St @ Emerald St

sauss, haven't heard from you since the storm. You got raked pretty good too - you guys alright?

[sauss06]

Haven't seen a storm like that in a long long time. My daughter and i were on the way home from practice, by the errrie green/black along the mountain, i knew it was going to be bad. we had a bolt of lightning hit right in front of us, my daughter flipped out. the hair stood up on my arms. sparks were flying, it was just crazy. My area, the west shore sidee of harrisburg was hit hard. I have power, but most of the township does not. Many trees and wires still down, many streets closed. Lost count of trees on houses. Our FD has been at it since 7 last night. i may soon go releive someone. they gotta be tired. they had to have gone on 60-100 incidents. gotta go clean up some limbs in my yard. i'll check back in later.....do we get another round later today?

[Itstrainingtime]

I count myself very fortunate after last night. My daughter had a softball game in Maytown, we got to the 5th inning as the skies darkened. Game was called once we starting seeing cloud to ground lightening. It got VERY black, and yeah, I was concerned...not sure I've seen such an angry, dark sky in a long time. Soon, the winds picked up and everyone was running for their vehicles. My house is literally 2 minutes from the field, we got home with winds probably in the 30-40mph range, but no rain yet. We hurried inside and waited, and waited, and....waited. About 30 minutes later, the sky was clearing again. We had about 10 minutes of rain that didn't even make things wet under the trees. That was all we had, and I'm very happy for it.

I hope all of you in Central PA that were in the direct path of these storms are all doing okay...

[PennMan]

Here's a quick cell pic I just took of one of the many, many trees down. This is 2nd St @ Emerald St

sauss, haven't heard from you since the storm. You got raked pretty good too - you guys alright?

Wow, impressive pic... Nothing that exciting here. Had a few gusts in the 40-50mph range right out ahead of the storm and then 25-35mph gusts during the storm a few times. About 3-4 minutes of small hail mixed in as well. Even that was the best storm we've had here in quite awhile, but I'm glad it was no worse...just some small branches down around the neighborhood. I have the day off now because the warehouse I work in has had no power since 8PM last evening...no pay though...so meh. Made our first run at 90° yesterday...89.6° for the high...so by NWS definition, it made it. Looks hot for the upcoming week.

[MAG5035]

Haven't seen a storm like that in a long long time. My daughter and i were on the way home from practice, by the errrie green/black along the mountain, i knew it was going to be bad. we had a bolt of lightning hit right in front of us, my daughter flipped out. the hair stood up on my arms. sparks were flying, it was just crazy. My area, the west shore sidee of harrisburg was hit hard. I have power, but most of the township does not. Many trees and wires still down, many streets closed. Lost count of trees on houses. Our FD has been at it since 7 last night. i may soon go releive someone. they gotta be tired. they had to have gone on 60-100 incidents. gotta go clean up some limbs in my yard. i'll check back in later.....do we get another round later today?

Hopefully nothing as bad as what you guys experienced yesterday. It seems like the H-burg region has been a magnet for flash flooding and/or severe thunderstorms as of late. Parameters overall today do not look as impressive as they did when things exploded in the region yesterday. Biggest threat today likely to be winds with anything that pops up in the Susquehanna valley with the somewhat decent downdraft CAPE's that are present.

Incidentally, the very strong line of storms that developed yesterday was proceeded by high downdraft CAPE's..as well as a variety of other things. The line actually seemed derecho-like in nature as it was somewhat long lived and far travelling. A look at the radar loop showed that it made it all the way up into Vermont in tact after consolidating near the H-burg region. The Derecho Composite Parameter was a number that was very high yesterday as well. That incorporates MUCAPE, DCAPE, 0-6km shear, and 0-6km mean wind into a equation based on over 100 previous derecho events. I assume a value of 1 means that the bare minimum numbers are achieved on those above listed severe parameters. Values ahead of the storms yesterday were in the 8-10 range.