2026 Mid-Atlantic Severe Storm General Discussion

[SnowenOutThere]

Geez, got back home and there’s a tree down across the road. Couple limbs down around the neighborhood. Everyone’s outside. 

[snowfan]

[snowfan]

[mkellerm]

The storm that just came through Annapolis was pretty intense.  BGE says 22,000 without power in Anne Arundel County.  We had lights flickering for about 10 minutes.

[SnowenOutThere]

An exciting couple of hours weather wise! 

Honestly, once the first round passed I assumed it was over until I heard some thunder in the distance. After looking at the radar I instantly rushed off to the Herndon metro parking garage as it has the best skyline I know of. Got there in time to watch the shelf cloud develop and then roll in. 

Before becoming part of the "# of people struck by lightning a year" statistic I made sure to get a picture of my trusty stead: The humble CRV. 

Afterwards, I decided to ride out the storm inside of the parking garage as driving home on FFX County parkway did not seem like a good time.

 

Eventually, I decided to take a video of the storm coming in. Could hear the metal signs clanging throughout the empty garage. Was pretty freaky. 

Finally, as the storm passed I saw a double rainbow appear. I attempted to get a lightning rainbow picture to complete my collection but had no such luck; though I personally hold the mental image with me. 

Lo and behold, just as I was packing up, another rainbow appeared which was even more vibrant than the first! 

Finally, I headed on homeward where I was met with a tree in the road. Additional limbs came down on fences, and even my neighbors windshield. 

Now, this (if I was smart) is where I should've realized that we will have an awesome sunset due to the past convection and humid air combined with the advantageous June sun angle and thus rushed to some open space to capture what might be the sunset of the year. Sadly, I only realized it was occurring as it passed (I'm sure there is a lesson in this) and realized a 10 minute drive would reward me only with deepening twilight. So, I sat back and watched what I could from my driveway. 

[BlizzardNole]

Geez Snowen those pics!! 

"on this episode of Storm Chasers..."

[snowfan]

That aa co storm was putting out a healthy amount of lightning.

[Kmlwx]

Anne Arundel Co FD has a crap ton of calls 

[wxdude64]

Sadly a life was lost to the storms going east of Roanoke earlier today-

Preliminary Local Storm Report
National Weather Service Blacksburg VA
927 PM EDT Fri Jun 12 2026

..TIME...   ...EVENT...      ...CITY LOCATION...     ...LAT.LON...
..DATE...   ....MAG....      ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
            ..REMARKS..

0640 PM     Tstm Wnd Dmg     2 S Moneta              37.15N 79.63W
06/12/2026                   Bedford            VA   911 Call Center

            *** 1 FATAL, 23 INJ ***
            Corrects previous tstm wnd dmg report from 2
            S Moneta. Outflow from thunderstorm blew
            down one tent at a local church. One
            fatality and 23 injuries have been reported
            as of this report.

[wxdude64]

Only a 38 mph gust here at 5:20 pm in the thunderstorm, but when we left to go out to eat at 5:45 at the bottom of the hill a large maple had split and pulled power lines across the road, maybe 1/3 mile away from our house. They just were getting the road reopened when we came back at 9:30 pm. 

[Rhino16]

I went outside at work and it was windy. Dust was flying everywhere from the gravel parking lot it brought me back to Kansas. Unfortunately I had to get back to work, but it did rain briefly! Now there’s some rumbly showers rolling through in a minute or two. It gusted 29mph at the local airport.

[vortex95]

10 hours ago, wxmeddler said:

Some thoughts on yesterday, then today...

Yesterday:
Anytime you get a "swashed spider" hodograph, the storms are going to be weaker and messier than just looking at the thermodynamics would expect you to believe. Venting, inflow, water loading, updraft velocity are all going to be negatively impacted. That said, yesterday there was a decent shortwave and enough low level instability that allowed a few storms to develop over/west of the mountains and get the cold pool party started. Once the cold pool production began, the ambient DCAPE and torrid conditions was enough to sustain weak pulse like thunderstorms to the ocean. Limbs start to fail around these parts at around 30 mph, and you start seeing downed trees around 45-50 mph. That is just the nature of the flora in our region, they don't get hit often and so even weak storms do damage. 

Today:
Another weak wave as part of the packet that spawned the tornado outbreak in IL/IN yesterday will move into the western region this afternoon. Theta-E values in excess of 350K with minimal MLCIN should be enough to spark off scattered showers. While overall wind speeds in the lower troposphere are higher today, shear magnitudes remain weak, especially above 3km. Cold Pool propagation and aggregation of these showers should spawn further flank development of showers and thunderstorms. Due to the higher windspeeds aloft today compared to yesterday, storm and cold pool motions will likely be 10kts faster than yesterday. Therefore ground relative windspeeds should be slightly higher today. The question will be storm coverage, which we really won't know for sure until things fire after 3PM. CAM's are hinting that areas south of US50 are more likely than up near the M/D line.

 

The surging satellite appearance of the storms Thu reminded me of a tropical squall line.  Mesoscale factors, such as the cool pool, are the driving force due to lack of winds aloft/deep layer wind shear.

[mkellerm]

We are stuck in our neighborhood near Annapolis.  There is a tree across our street with a diameter of about 2 feet blocking the road.  

The county won’t be able to get to it for a while, since the main road into our subdivision is also blocked by trees.  A little further down, there is now what looks like an alley through the woods where all of the trees have been knocked down.  
 

In our back yard, a 120-foot tall tulip poplar blew down.  The rootball is about four feet taller than I am.

[Random Chaos]

Saw two separate storm reports of 83mph winds just south of US50 through the Annapolis area. Looked like the main cell went just south of the 50 corridor from Parole to the Bay Bridge. I’m just north of that and didn’t get anything severe level, but lost power maybe 5 minutes ahead of the storm - based on outaged 2-3 substations on Broadneck probably all lost power, like a tree (or trees) down nesr the naval academy or along St Margaret’s Rd. Where the feed lines for the substations go.

0904 PM     Marine Tstm Wind 7 ESE Cape St. Claire   38.99N  76.34W

06/12/2026  M83 mph          ANZ532             MD   Mesonet

 

0904 PM     Tstm Wnd Gst     3 S Cape St. Claire     39.00N  76.45W

06/12/2026  M75 mph          Anne Arundel       MD   Mesonet

 

0844 PM     Tstm Wnd Gst     1 SE Parole             38.98N  76.54W

06/12/2026  M83 mph          Anne Arundel       MD   Mesonet

 

[high risk]

Sunday still looking very good on the 00Z CAMs.   Disagreement on whether storms fire early on the pre-frontal trough or wait for the actual front later, but the shear is massively improved from what we've had the past few days.

[RDM]

Lost power about 1915 when the line went through.  The wind/rain was blindingly heavy for just a few mins, but that was enough to cause havoc.  Was a surreal event to see even for an old fart like me who has seen a lot.  

Power is still out atm ivo much of Vienna/Oakton.  Crew hasn't even been dispatched yet on our specific outage, which is impacting 510 customers.  Getting a crew dispatched is the first step to get beyond the "pending investigation" status.  We'll be lucky if service is restored by sunrise. 

It was very odd how the power went out this time.  Normally the transformers try to reset up to 3 times before kicking off for good (according to the VA Power lineman).  In this case, the power went off/on several times and then flickered very bad for several minutes in unison with the typical "boom" from the transformers; before I shut off the service at the main breakers to protect electronics.  We've never experienced that sort of service shutdown before.

We're still on generator power to run the basics.  Still trying to convince my wife it's time for a whole-house auto-start system.  With the frequency in how often we lose power I'm about ready to invest in a proper system.  We're on well and septic and the surge of 220VAC well pump is the main drain on our 9500 watt generator.  Currently 35,000 customers out on Dominion's outage site.