STORM2K

It's August and we're all talking a lot about tropical storms and hurricanes now. But while we are doing that, something coud happen to us right under our feet. The temperature in Richmond, Virginia hit 100 F yesterday, and a cold front with thunderstorms came through last night. Boy did it ever. Lots of leaves were on the ground, and a few twigs, indicating winds of 40-45 mph, and there were many reports of trees down, indicating 60 mph wind gusts. The rainfall at my house in Chester was 5.86 inches. That is a lot more than Isabel (3.44), a lot more than Floyd (4.5), more than Dennis 1999 (3) or the storm in between those two (3), and even more than Danny in the 1980s at the airport (5.66 inches). It set a new record at my house. You don't need a hurricane to have great winds and deluges of rain.

More than just rain, these storms caused some huge wind and tons of lightning. I had no power for 23 hours.

This storm also produced more lightning strikes than all the other storms up to now in 2007 put together - 38,500 strokes, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. 1 out of 3 customers lost power, and there were fallen trees all over the place. This storm, in my opinion, was more severe than either Fran or Floyd.

So I think it deserves a name. I shall call it the Elvis Storm, since it occurred on the 30th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death.

Yeah, the storms were slowly training over you guys down south! I had hoped, since the SPC gave northern VA and MD the slight risk early in the morning that we could see some good storms, but it set up right along a line from just south of Charlottesville through the heart of Richmond and on down to the SE. When we did eventually get some storms up here in the north, it rained for about a half hour and gave us about a third of an inch . . . not bad, but it doesn't do much our fields of brown crunchy things formerly known as grass . . .

How about sending some of that rain down across the border. I have only had .77 this month after just over 9 inches in July.

It should be coming later tonight.

Yes, it did come. It looked like a flying wedge headed right for Chesterfield, Virginia. When it struck Chester at 6 pm, it created high winds which I estimate at about 40 mph, then some places had a big pile of rain, but we didn't. There were 4 power glitches here, each lasting a tiny fraction of a second. We seem to be in a weather pattern where each passing front generates severe storms.