Severe Storm Rattles DC
A line of severe thunderstorms swept through the Washington, D.C. area on Friday night. The storm produced a weather phenomenon called a derecho.
A derecho (pronounced similar to “deh-REY-cho” in English, or pronounced phonetically as “”) is a widespread, long-lived wind storm that is associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms. Although a derecho can produce destruction similar to that of tornadoes, the damage typically is directed in one direction along a relatively straight swath. As a result, the term “straight-line wind damage” sometimes is used to describe derecho damage. By definition, if the wind damage swath extends more than 240 miles (about 400 kilometers) and includes wind gusts of at least 58 mph (93 km/h) or greater along most of its length, then the event may be classified as a derecho.
Doug Hill, Chief Meteorologist at WJLA TV, reported on Twitter: “92 mph wind shear over Gaithersburg.”
The National Weather Service Mesonet reports a 68 mph gust at Andrews Air Force Base at 10:58 pm. Rt. 66 at Rosslyn reported a 60 mph gust.
NBC Channel 4 storm report:
Extensive power outages have been reported. As of about 11:30 p.m., Pepco was reporting 326,363 customers without power in D.C., Prince George’s County and Montgomery County (134,984). As of about 11:15 p.m., Dominion Power was reporting 439,141 outages in northern Virginia and 129,406 outages in Shenandoah Valley/Western Piedmont. As of about 11:20 p.m. Allegheny reported 7,781 outages in Montgomery County, 1,021 in Howard County and 12,248 in Frederick County. SMECO was reporting 9,104 outages.
Pepco said some customers could be without power for multiple days, which could be very dangerous for some as the heat wave continues through the weekend.
DC storm video on YouTube
Video of storm from Navy Yard
Many power outages now being reported. Trees down.
Pepco:
366,165 customers without power. Pepco electrical outage map and additional information.
Dominion
Dominion Power outage map. Red dots are over 2,500 customers out.
First Energy:
Tens of thousands without power in multiple states. First Energy outage map for Maryland and nearby states.
This entry was posted on Friday, June 29th, 2012 at 11:40 pm and is filed under Original writing, Original writing, Reporting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
