SE PA Wind

[Heady Guy]

I am located about 18 miles NW of center city PHL, the wind has really picked up the past 2 hours. I would estimate a steady 20-30 mph breeze, with gusts to low 50 mph. I was not expecting wind in this range...more rain. Any other locals feel free to express views.

[terstorm]

I'm about 60 miles west of you near Lancaster, we've had some gusts over 45 during the evening.

[wnknisely]

I'm north of you in Bethlehem... Our wind is typically about 20 mph at the moment with gusts near 40.

Number of trees already down - lots of power lines getting taken out.

Surprisingly little rain though. If the rain holds off, we might not have nearly the problems here that we expected.

[Heady Guy]

Consider your self luck, my buddy down in VABCH had a roof blown off his house.

[Zanzie]

We're in Ambler, about 15 miles north of Philly. Our power has been out since about 6:30, presumably due to downed trees. It's been windy all day, intensifying after dark. I'm not sure of wind speed; suspect gusts are in the 40-45 mph range. Rain held off until 4; until about 15 minutes ago, it was intermittent and very light. We're glad the rain has been light so far, since we have a creek in the back and downstream neighbors with chainlink fences over the creek.

We've heard a few limbs go down in the back yard, and my husband just heard what sounded like a tree falling across the road. We're on generator, so as long as the trees don't fall on us and mess up our wiring, we can run the sump pump and vacuums in the basement. It's going to be a long night, but nothing like our neighbors to the south have experienced.

[Heady Guy]

I live out in out west Blue Bell, off of 73 past Center Square. I have heard about the power problems...local news/peco say 3 telephone poles blown down...any insight ?

[Zanzie]

Watching the news on ch. 6 - they're saying power is out for 150,000 customers in the 5-county area. Numbers are going up fast. Delaware, Chester and Montgomery County are worst hit. They've restored power to 130,000 already (not us!), meaning that some 300,000 customers have been affected tonight. High winds are downing trees and power lines.

[rick-g]

add another 12000 with out power in the NEPA and north central PA. Most of the schools have closed for tomorrow too.

[coriolis]

Hey Pennsylvanians! I lived near Norristown for a number of years.
Here in Williamsport its breezy now. TWC local page says 13 mph w/gusts to 25 which seems about right. It's supposed to pick up some later tonight and tomorrow morning. We haven't received much rain yet.

[terstorm]

Heavy rain here in Lancaster County, winds sustained at maybe 20, gusting as high as 55. Power out to at least 10,000 in Lancaster alone.

[wxnut]

Hello all, I finally decided to register after lurking for awhile. Here in Tamaqua it's quite windy. I don't have wind equipment, but in nearby Pottsville wind gusts have reached 58mph. Judging by the look of the trees whipping around I'd say pretty close to the same here. Rainfall so far is 1.7" in the "official backyard rainguage".

Hello, wnknisely, I was born and raised in Bethlehem. It's a very nice city. Let me know how things are going down there. I know that there are MANY large trees in the older neighborhoods. I used to live on the westside at 10th Ave & Market and there was always tree damage when there was high winds.

[kmanWX]

Gooday everyone
Well last night was some windy night winds speeds were over 30knots. Rainfall was not as much as expected but still recieve over a half an inch. Schools in the philly area are Open today. Which I doult anyone will come since I don't really fell like going outside today. Here are the current conditions in philly.
Looks like the winds will claim down in a few hours as it move more away.

[JCT777]

Here in Spring Mount, PA the winds gusted to 45 - 50 MPH overnight, and we had maybe an inch of rain. Our power went out for about a minute a little after 2 AM. Lots of leaves and small branches blew off of trees, but I did not see any houses or cars damaged.

[coriolis]

The winds seem to have peaked around 8:00 this morning and things have calmed down. We had some gusts that had to be approaching 50 mph. We have tree branches down and they fell on one neighbor's power line. Even with this scaled down version of the storm, it's still awesome to think that this storm started way over in Africa, and persisted for such a distance and time.

[Zanzie]

We're very relieved that it's morning and we're able to look around. our damage is limited to a large number of fallen limbs and a yard littered with green leaves. Our power has been out for about 16 hours now, cable is also out. We're in good company on that score. We have been very fortunate. It rained a lot during the night, and it's definitely soggy, but our stream didn't flood and our trees remained standing. we're now on the phone looking out for friends and family.

[mathias1979]

I'm visiting my fiancee down in Hershey, PA. Nothing that crazy last night...I'd estimate sustained winds maybe near 30 mph overnight with some gusts to 40 or 45. Just a lot of branches and leaves down.

The governer claimes the highest wind gust in PA was 78 mph in Lancaster. anyone know if they're was any truth to that? The highest official one I saw for Lancaster was more along the lines of 58 mph.

-Matt

[terstorm]

"The governer claimes the highest wind gust in PA was 78 mph in Lancaster. anyone know if they're was any truth to that? The highest official one I saw for Lancaster was more along the lines of 58 mph. "

The highest gust right outside Lancaster was 51mph. I suppose it could be possible in some of the higher hills around the city, there is a lot of tree damage that suggests it.

[terstorm]

oak tree snapped in three on campus of Millersville University, just outside Lancaster PA.

I took a lot more pictures. This was the only tree down, but places in York and Lancaster City had a ton of trees down.

All of the tree limbs are oriented NW-SE, I suspect all the strong winds we had were southeast gusts.