Just minutes ago, we had a short but intense thunderstorm roll through Dover NH, according to the NWS, winds may have been up to 60 MPH, and I believe it, of course, now it’s nice and sunny
This is very atypical weather for New Hampshire, I was fully expecting a funnel cloud to drop out of the storm
Oddly enough, the same thing happened at about the exact same time in Philadelphia. It was a hot sunny day, and all of a sudden I look out my 6th floor office window and instead of the usual skyline, I can’t see *anything *-- not even the building right across from me. The wind wasn’t quite that strong, but there was some small hail coming down. It’s turning sunny again now.
Sounds like an air-mass thunderstorm. These usually form as a result of uneven heating of the earth. They can be severe-ish, but rarely pose a threat. in some places in the South, you can almost set your watch by the afternoon single-cell thunderstorms that roll through at the same time of day during the summer.
Yeah, we had a fairly impressive storm here just a couple hours before yours (part of the same weather system?)
The thunder and lightning started, then picked up pace. Then rain started coming down in torrents. Our lights flickered a few times, finally went out for good, all over town, for about two hours. Yuck.
You live in Dover? I’m in Berwick and Renee lives in North Berwick. I foresee a dopefest in the future…
I work in Dover, live in York, Maine
And last night, around 7 PM, we had another storm similar to the linked video roll through, about 5-10 minutes of sound-and-fury, and another 15 minutes or so of annoyed rumbling
As is typical for our area, we lost power again, three trees down on our feeder road, power went off around 7:15, and was restored at 4 AM…
I went out around 11 PM to see if there was any progress on the restoration, skies were clear, the moon was full, and I turned into a werewolf…err…no, sorry, but the moon was exceptionally bright, I could read by moonlight, so I sat outside soaking up the moonlight for a bit, then went for a drive, but the road near the largest tree fall was closed, so I went back and tried to get some sleep, to be awoken at 4 AM when the power clicked back on
I’m running on about 4 hours sleep, it was too hot to sleep upstairs…
In the NE USA, on any hot/muggy day (mugginess courtesy of the Atlantic Ocean), there is a chance of a pop-up thunderstorm. It is very common.
Despite that… if there is a heat wave coming with humidity, and you look at the forecast, you will see the symbols for sun/heat and then a little blinking t-storm cloud (which you would think everyone understands).
I am surrounded by people who grew up here, and they still think that symbol means rain for the day. This weekend, hot/muggy is still the weather forecast, and the forecast has been misunderstood by virtually everyone that has discussed their weekend plans.
I am going boating, but I was advised that others weren’t bothering to drive to the beach, because it was supposed to rain Saturday and Sunday (they misunderstand the outside chance of a pop-up t-storm affecting them as ‘rain!’)
When I was at the Y yesterday, t-storms rocked the joint suddenly in the eve, but two guys in the locker room were stunned… puzzled… open jawed. They could not use the pool… and they were bantering back and forth, “It was only a 30% chance of rain today…” “It was nice all day, so I thought they were wrong about the rain.” 'It’s raining? It was just gorgeous out?"
They decided to go home. Shame… as it was sunny and beautiful 20 minutes later.
.
Don’t get me wrong, I know that “pop-up” t-storms are common in New England (motto “If you don’t like the weather, wait a few minutes”), what is atypical is the intensity of the storms recently, not the duration
Apparently the local weather crews think there might have actually been at least one small tornado touchdown in the Eliot/York/Kittery area, it wouldn’t surprise me, as I’m sure I experienced a microburst last night, around 7 PM I was videoing the storm with my iPhone, and in a matter of seconds, the rain went from steady, to sideways, it was falling east-to-west, quite heavy, and in mere moments, the rain suddenly changed to North-South (the porch faces North), drenching me within seconds, moments later (less than two seconds) I was hit by what felt like a wall of water and a blast of wind that almost knocked me off my feet, coming from the west
I retreated into the house, drying off my Otterboxed iPhone (thanks to the rubber flaps over the headphone jack and Dock connector, neither moisture sensor was triggered, and they were bone dry) and went into our south-facing sunroom
To the West, looking out over the patio, I saw our 50 foot tall Rock Maple trees swaying and twisting in an almost…circular… pattern, the tops of the trees bending far more than I would expect a huge old Maple to bend (the base of these trees are almost four feet wide), I was fully expecting them to break, thankfully they didn’t
and in less time than it’s taken me to write this, the wind subsided, and the rain dropped back to “downpour” levels
…then we experienced at least four 30 second brownouts before the power went out for the evening
I went upstairs, shut off my G4 tower, and plugged my MacBook into my APC Back UPS 1100 UPS, and plugged the iPhone into the MacBook, I was using the MacBook as a charger for the iPhone, so I was able to watch movies and play a few games while I waited for the power to be restored
Oh, I wasting saying you didn’t know… but I just found a chance to vent about people… it was somewhat relevant. 
I like me a good t-storm.
We got a bit of that storm here in North Berwick, it must have lost most of it’s omph by the time it got here. I was sitting out on the porch watching it–I love storms.
Not much of a thunderstorm last night. A few minutes of rain mixed a little with hail. The hail melted almost instantly on landing, it’s that hot. But the good news is that the temp dropped 9 degrees in 20 minutes. Really needed that (even though the humidity turns things into a sauna outside). At least the house cooled off some.
Well, it’s official, the second storm (the one that killed power for the local region) was a Microburst, basically a “reverse-tornado”, tornadoes suck, Microbursts blow
I believe it, when I got hit by that wall of water and wind, it almost knocked me off my feet, looking back, it was actually a pretty cool experience…