Family Life

08.25.11 | Sarah Harnisch

  There were violent lightening storms in New York and Pennsylania overnight. The storm started a little after 3:30 in the morning for central and western New York and lasted until 5 a.m.; with lightening zooming through the sky every few seconds.  Several times, it looked like the finale to a fireworks show, or, as one witness described it, a "strobe light stuck in the 'on' position". We are still waiting to see if there were any large damage reports from any of the strikes, but we can tell you hundreds of tree branches were knocked over from 50 mile an hour winds, and streets were rained out in more then a half dozen towns from flash flooding. Meteorologist Kevin Williams tells us it wasn't one storm, but several that were so close together it was impossible to tell where one started and the next began. Toronto took quite a hit from the same storm around 10 p.m. last night, with over 25 major strikes. The whole thing was so spectacular that an amateur photographer caught some incredible pictures. You can check them out here.

   There are photos of the storm in Western New York here.