Funny I would mention the 1998 Syracuse Labor Day Derecho for the first time yesterday. We have a team down at the Fulton County, Ohio Airport today. They're "inside a small room, away from the windows." One look at radar jogged my memory: there's a squall line with fully mature bow echo characteristics — cyclonic, anticyclonic subcells — bearing down on Northeast Ohio. Characteristics I've seen before:
As we learned in grade school: spring and autumn are unsettled, exciting and dangerous. Don't forget your umbrella.
IT CAME, WE SAW: At about 3:45 PM EDT, the western horizon filled with the bulbous, black façade of the storm as it barreled east. Two minutes later, the world went black. The storm didn't toss us around too much — in 1998, rain came sideways within a minute. A lot of rain and tiny hail pebbles fell — the first hail I've seen in years — and until about 4:10, the sky was an impenetrable light green. Off into the east the squall goes, and I suspect we'll have clear skies by midnight.
AND: Actually, arrival was closer to four o'clock — that's the time at which every mechanical clock in the apartment stayed at for the better part of eight hours. And at ten, the skies were clear (it's midnight now, and flashes of lightning from a second storm are moving closer). Without power, I was able to take a few night shots from the balcony.