High Wind and Strong Wind in Pennsylvania, March 6, 1997

A rapidly intensifying low pressure system and the pressure difference between it and a high pressure system over the Upper Plains caused strong to locally damaging winds in Eastern Pennsylvania and one fatality. An 81-year-old male was killed shortly after noon on the 6th in Upper Merion Township in Montgomery County when a large limb from a tree fell on him. He was cleaning up other limbs from the same tree.The surface low pressure system went from a pressure of 1012 millibars in Western Kentucky the morning of the 5th to a pressure of 986 millibars just east of Boston the morning of the 6th. The drop of 26 millibars or .78 inches of mercury within a 24 hour period constitutes what's called a meteorological bomb. The rapid intensification of this storm helped cause the very strong winds. The strongest wind gusts for most places coincided with this low pressure system's cold frontal passage during the early morning of the 6th. But winds remained very strong until the sun set that afternoon. About 28,000 homes lost power in the Pennsylvania Power and Light service area, half of them in the Lehigh Valley and Poconos. Fallen tree limbs were the main culprit. By late afternoon, most of the service was restored. In Lower Macungie Township, a third of a barn roof was blown off. In Upper Saucon Township, a fallen utility pole caused the evacuation of two families. In Allentown, fallen trees (including a 125-year-old elm) closed five roads. In Bethlehem, dozens of trees were uprooted. Also, the west wall of a building under construction was blown over. Around the Philadelphia area about 60,000 Philadelphia Electric Company (PECO) customers lost power with Bucks County having the most outages. The hardest hit areas within Bucks County included Bedminster, Bristol, Langhorne, Middletown, Newton and Warminster. In Doylestown, a family narrowly escaped injury after a huge tree branch came crashing through their roof and crushed the bathroom. In Plumstead Township, the winds ripped the tin roof from a barn. In Montgomery County, some terra-cotta tiles were ripped from the roof of a Beaver College building. In Philadelphia, one uprooted tree crushed an automobile. A few roadways throughout the Philadelphia Metropolitan area were closed because of downed trees. SEPTA, the regional rail line, experienced day long delays of up to 30 minutes due to downed branches.The highest wind gusts recorded including 68 mph at a PECO Energy site in Bucks County, 62 mph in Towamencin Township (Montgomery County), 58 mph at the Northeast Philadelphia Airport, 55 mph at the Willow Grove NAS, 52 mph at the Lehigh Valley International Airport and Reading and 51 mph at the Philadelphia International Airport. M81UT