Severe Thunderstorms in State College, Pennsylvania - June 27, 2002
by Jesse Ferrell, WeatherMatrix Founder

Two severe thunderstorms passed through the city of State College, PA, home of WeatherMatrix HQ, on June 27,2002. I took photographs of both of the storms from the west side of town on Science Park Road.

STORM #1 | STORM #2 | HQ WEATHER

The first storm came through at 12:45pm. A Severe Thunderstorm Warning was issued while the storm was still in Clearfield County. Very strong sustained winds were noted with this storm. The following wind gusts were recorded:

• 26mph at WeatherMatrix HQ
• 21mph at State College HS
• 40mph at UNV airport
• 37mph at AWS in Bellefonte PA

Several periods of strong rotation in different areas of the clouds above my location were observed. We saw several solid cloud-to-ground lightning strikes, which are indicated on the lightning strike plot below. Quickly after observing the rotation, the south end of the storm started breaking up and the lightning stopped.

The following Local Storm Reports were called into the National Weather Service in Clearfield and Centre counties ( see also full PA reports for this day):

1235 PM    BURNSIDE TOWNSHIP         PA   WIND DAMAGE 
06/27/02   CLEARFIELD       TREES DOWN REPORTED BY 911 DISPATCHER 

1245 PM    BELLEFONTE  PA   WIND DAMAGE
06/27/02   CENTRE           TREES DOWN REPORTED BY 911 DISPATCHER 

0202 PM    CURWENSVILLEPA   FLASH FLOODS 
06/27/02   CLEARFIELD       STREETS CLOSED DUE TO FLOODING REPORTED BY 911 DISPATCHER 

PHOTOS OF STORM #2 GUST FRONT/ SHELF CLOUD. Click each for larger image.

	Looking North/Looking West
	The various areas of rotation are shown in the sky shots above. These were not zoomed, just taken looking straight up. Rotation was all counterclockwise and observed in 4-6 places. The local radar indicated 2-D Correlated Shear just before these shots were taken.
		Looking South/Looking East

WEATHERMATRIX WEATHERCAM SHOTS (Automatically Generated) Click each for larger image. Location is tip of arrow.

12:41 Looking West	12:46 Looking West	12:51 Looking West
12:56 Looking West	13:02 Looking West	12:32 Looking East
12:38 Looking East	12:43 Looking East	12:48 Looking East

WEATHER IMAGES FROM STORM Click each for larger image. Location is tip of arrow.

Local Radar Animation	Base Velocity Animation	Storm-Rel Vel Animation
SOURCE: AccuWeather.com Premium	SOURCE: AccuWeather.com Premium	SOURCE: AccuWeather.com Premium
Metro Radar Animation	Lightning Strike Image	Visible Satellite Image
SOURCE: AccuWeather.com Premium	SOURCE: GAI /Vaisala LightningBug	SOURCE: AccuWeather.com Premium

STORM #2

The second storm came through at 3:30pm. A Severe Thunderstorm Warning was issued while the storm as the storm approached Centre County. Heavy rain, high winds and frequent lightning were observed during the storm.

The following Local Storm Report was called into the National Weather Service in Clearfield Centre county ( see also full PA reports for this day):

0405 PM    CENTRE HALL PA   WIND DAMAGE
06/27/02   CENTRE           NUMEROUS WIRES AND TREEES
DOWN REPORTED BY EMA 

PHOTOS OF STORM #2 GUST FRONT/ SHELF CLOUD. Click each for larger image.

WEATHERMATRIX WEATHERCAM SHOTS (Automatically Generated) Click each for larger image. Location is tip of arrow.

15:25 Looking East	15:23 Looking West	15:29 Looking West
	15:34 Looking West

WEATHER IMAGES FROM STORM Click each for larger image. Location is tip of arrow.

Storm Total Image (Yellow In Centre Co. Is Result of This Storm)	Lightning Strikes In Area (8 Strikes in Our Immediate Area, 14 near WeatherMatrix HQ (Yellow Star), Over 2000 C-G Strikes in the County From This Storm	Local Radar Animation
SOURCE: AccuWeather.com Premium	SOURCE: GAI /Vaisala LightningBug	SOURCE: WeatherTap.com

WEATHER DATA FROM WEATHERMATRIX HQ

On the lightning detector, we recorded the following stats, which are records or near-records for this station.

• Total strokes: 112,063
• Total strong strokes: 583
• Peak stroke count: 1236 per minute at 3:43:07 PM
• See Full Stats

On the weather station graphs, notice the strong temperature dips after both of the storms, even though the first one provided no rainfall it did provide an outflow boundary that cooled us off. Winds were sustained before the first storm then calmed until the second storm when the spikes (to 26mph, not shown). Hourly details and weekly/monthly graphs are available. The second storm provided over an inch of rain in an hour. This was the first significant rainfall we had received in 12 days.