Keith Mayer: Waves of storms rolled through Berks; tornado watch lifted

May 20—The National Weather Service lifted a tornado watch Friday about 4:30 p.m. for Berks County after hours of thunderstorms crossed Berks, adding to rainfall totals for an already wet month ahead of what is expected to be a very hot May day.

The watch had originally been issued about 11:30 a.m.

A flood advisory was issued shortly before 4 p.m. and that was expected to run until 7 p.m., the original time the tornado watch was to expire.

A severe thunderstorm warning was added about 1:30 p.m. as a slow-moving squall line moved into Berks from the southwest. Rainfall totals really ramped up with the squall line. By shortly after 2 p.m., many spots in the southern half of Berks were approaching a half-inch of rain for the day.

There were crashes in numerous spots in Berks. There was one call for a water rescue at Blue Marsh Lake for a man whose boat was stuck.

By 3 p.m., a squall line entered from the west and all of Berks was getting drenched.

Calls for emergency crews to respond to trees, wires and limbs down started, adding to the crashes. The Met-Ed power outage numbers jumped from a couple dozen customers to nearly 50 0 and soon to more than 900.

Power restoration was expected by late Friday.

The forecast quickly changed from a sunny Friday with a high in the upper 80s to a stormy potential with a high in the mid-80s.

The temperature only reached 81 degrees officially at Reading Regional Airport, the weather service site in Berks. The total of 0.90 inch of rain that fell at the airport brought the monthly total to nearly 5 inches with another 11 days to go.

Retired meteorologist Jeffrey R. Stoudt was monitoring the rainfall and said this: "Two PWSs (personal weather stations) just over the river in Muhlenberg show 1.33 and 1.37 (inches). The bulls-eye appears to be near Boyertown where (a) site has 1.73 (inches)."

Stoudt's Lincoln Park site recorded 0.53 inch. Other measurements included Blue Marsh Lake, 1.28 inches, and Vinemont, 0.71.

Many of the spotters have their own websites or report online through weatherunderground.com or the MesoWest or CoCoRaHS collectives.

Saturday is still expected to be sunny and hot with a high in the mid-90s in Berks.

The weather service has issued an air quality alert for Berks and the rest of southeastern Pennsylvania.

A heat advisory is in effect for Chester and Montgomery counties, which border Berks to the south and east, respectively.

Then the forecast shows a few degrees cooler on Sunday and the chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon ahead of an advancing cool front.

Mostly cloudy conditions with much cooler temperatures are likely Monday.