High Winds
Pennsylvania
January 10-11, 2000

High winds were experienced in PA from January 10 to 11 of 2000.

The National Weather Service in State College PA issued a High Wind Watch late on January 9th along with a number of other statements during the next 48 hours (search for them in the (CASI Severe Text Archive). They discontinued the watch at 4pm on January 10th, saying that winds had diminished, but afterwards winds gusted above their predictions in Altoona PA and scattered power outages happened in the region, including one at CASI HQ which lasted 3 hours (see below). Radio reports the next day (1/11) again confirmed suspicions that the scattered power outages were caused by the high winds.

I also received a report of trees down in the Moshannon State Forest via a friend.

Here at CASI HQ we recorded a maximum gust of 31mph at 11:18am on 1/10, not counting the time during the power outage that evening.

We experienced higher and more constant winds the day after the High Wind Watch ended, on January 11, with a maximum gust of 41.5 mph @ 10:26 am

See graphs of the wind speed at CASI HQ via CASI Weather Stations CASI2 (Primary) and CASI4 (Secondary) through 7pm 1/11 (and it's still windy then!).

On the afternoon of January 11, a surprise (unpredicted) series of heavy snow showers whitened the area quickly, causing a quick and harsh temperature drop.

See the CASICAM Before, During, and After the Snow Shower shots!

National Weather Service Wind Reports:

• Local Storm Reports From NWS Offices in PA
• High Wind Reports From Pittsburgh PA NWS
• Weather Highlights From AccuWeather Detail Wind Gusts

The following are reports from CASI Members.

Subject: [CASI-SR] High Winds = Power Outage At CASI HQ
Date: 11 Jan 2000 03:33:14 -0000
From: CASI Founder Jesse Ferrell

Well hello, the power finally came back on at 9:15pm here at CASI HQ,
after being knocked off at approx. 6:30pm, purportedly due to wind.

The highest wind gust I recorded today was the 31mph I mentioned earlier
at 11:18am.  Of course that doesn't count when the power was out, but
does count 7:00-9:15pm when I had the WMR-918 station running on battery
power, it recorded a max of 26mph.

The High Wind Warning was cancelled at about 4pm, saying that winds
would only be 15-20mph possibly gusting to 40mph, and immediately
afterwards the Altoona airport reported a 27mph sustained wind and gust
to 44mph.  Then interestingly enough the power outage happened (and I
heard 2nd hand stories of other outages in the area from truckers on the
CB at 7pm).

Even *more* interesting is that this power outage appeared to eminate
from the SAME area where I recorded the transformer explosion on
videotape during the last windstorm in late 1999.  Must be a weak line. 
I will investigate the area this weekend.

Pressure fell to 29.20" this afternoon and is rising again now.

-- 
==============================================================
Jesse Ferrell - Meteorologist/Web Dev. - nospam@weatherwatchers.org 
Central Atlantic Storm Investigators - www.weatherwatchers.org
"They're not who we're looking for; they're just meteorologists-
storm chasers." --Peter Watts, "Millennium" || ICQ No. 136832 ||



Subject: [CASI-SR] Western PA Storm reports.
From: CASI Member Jonathan Anschutz
Date: 11 Jan 2000 16:40:13 -0000

Hello all,
 
Right now winds are extremely gusty, in fact, there are several reports of 
downed trees coming across my scanner. Yesterday, there were numerous reports 
of power outages and downed trees.  The highest wind gust that was
reported on the news was 55 MPH at the Carnegie Science Center.
 
Here in Greensburg there was not a lot of noticeable wind.  A 
thundershower moved through about 2 pm.  Winds
started about 2:30, but never seemed to amount to much at my location, although 
the Laurel Highlands and area north and east of PGH had more reports of storm 
related damage.
 
Snow is in the forecast for this evening, although there is nothing 
significant expected.
 
Jonathan Anschutz
Parker City Skywarn
http://www.angelfire.com/pa/ParkerCityFire/page3.html

© 1999 Central Atlantic Storm Investigators