During the past seven days the CSRA has had numerous and severe thunderstorms three evenings. It started on Wednesday, June 15th. A front moved across the area with winds strongly out of the northeast and knocked out power all across the CSRA. As mentioned in an earlier blog entry the Gracewood weather station recorded a new high wind gust speed of 52 mph during that storm and Bush Field NWS shows a 67 mph gust.
Then late evening thunderstorms developed on Saturday, June 18th which, again produced gusts above 50 mph and rain. Finally, last night, Tuesday, June 21st, brought additional severe storms from the southwest quadrant with high wind gusts in addition to the heaviest rain amounts so far. GWS recorded 1.88 inches of rain overnight compared to .37 inches last Wednesday and .68 inches Saturday night.
I mention for curiosity's sake that during the storms last Wednesday, in the area of the GWS a large tree was blown off vertical by about 10º - 12º. The root ball was pulled up resulting in large raised area of ground off of one side of the trunk; but the roots didn't pull out of the ground. Last night's storms which came from the opposite direction reversed the damage! The tree is now nearly vertical again and the raised ground around the trunk is level. Curious what the wind will do sometimes. With the tree now weakened, I wouldn't be surprised to see it completely toppled after the next northeaster comes through.
