A small but powerful storm moved over the Peninsula last night.  It knocked down trees and power lines from Isle of Wight to Hampton. 

This was sent in by Liz Paiva near Buckroe Beach.  We had numerous reports of poles down on Aberdeen Road.  It takes a lot of wind to knock over a telephone pole.  I wonder if a tree fell on a line and pulled them over.  I don’t know if some type of resonance worked on the lines somehow either.  (It’s an engineer thing). 

Here’s a tree that fell on a fence in Newport News.  It was sent in by Bill Vose.  Luckily no one was hurt.  There were numerous reports of trees down around Smithfield and Carrolton.  There have been no reports of tornadoes so far.  There may have been some mid level rotation in the storm, but it looks like this was a straight lined wind event.  A storm spotter recorded a wind gust to 64mph in Hampton. I bet the winds got higher in some locations based on the damage, but it probably wasn’t recorded.  Again, this storm was small.  When Don did the cut-in last night he zoomed out to show the entire viewing area, and you couldn’t see the storm anymore.  But when you stretch it out along it’s path, then it did cover a long stretch. 

And last, but not least we did get some more lightning.  This is another great lightning photo from a friend of Don McDaniel. 

I don’t know what carrier that was or if it took a hit, but it is a great shot. 

Over the next couple of days we should see nice weather overall.  We could see a few storms during any of the evenings.  Uh oh.. Our latest computer model brings a few storms near the metro on Saturday night (4th of July).  The NAM keeps them up near Richmond and the GFS doesn’t have anything.  So we’ll see what the next update or two come in with.  Remember fireworks didn’t happen in some cities last year due to storms and wind in the area.  My son was very dissapointed.  So I’ll be watching it like a hawk.  Or maybe an Owl with big eyes. 

Meteorologist: Jeremy Wheeler