Hail and Damaging Winds in Maryland, June 26, 1998

A weak upper-level disturbance, combined with a surface trough, triggered a hot, humid, unstable air mass lying across much of Maryland. Strong to severe thunderstorms developed rapidly in northern Maryland and tracked east-southeast into east-central and lower southern Maryland during the early evening. The main culprits for damage were gusty winds and lightning, through a few occurrences of large hail were noted.Initial thunderstorms produced large hail in central Baltimore and northern Carroll Cos during the mid afternoon. The real action began during the early evening commuting hours, when a severe thunderstorm knocked down numerous trees and large limbs on an east-southeast trek from Reisterstown to Essex. The same cell produced wind-driven hail which broke windows of several automobiles in Reisterstown. The flying glass shards injured one occupant of a vehicle; the shards had to be removed from his scalp. Other wind damage was noted across southern Carroll Co and central Montgomery Co.The final round of storms fired during the mid-evening, producing damaging wind gusts (mainly trees and power lines), first in northern and eastern Anne Arundel Co. Other storms developed over lower southern Maryland, producing tree and wire damage in St Mary's and Calvert Cos.Lightning was a major factor with the storms. A lightning death occurred in southwest Baltimore City at 1730EST when two youngsters were running home to escape the storm. They made it to the shelter of a large tree, which was struck. The attendant current burned over half of the deceased's (a nine-year old girl) body. Her 8 year-old friend survived with lesser burns. Farther south, a small house fire was ignited by a lightning strike in Arnold. Power outages of at least 33,000 Southern Maryland Electric Co. customers were directly attributed to a lightning strike at a supply station in St Mary's Co. In all, at least 50,000 Maryland residents west of the Chesapeake Bay lost electricity during the outbreak of storms.