The National Weather Service issued a special weather statement Friday afternoon calling for a line of strong showers and thunderstorms moving from west to east across southeastern Pennsylvania. The warning includes Berks, Carbon, Lehigh, Monroe and Northampton counties.
“Some of the heavier showers or thunderstorms will produce localized wind gusts up to about 40 miles per hour and small hail,” the NWS statement said. “There may also be localized rain showers, which could lead to short, minor flooding.”
The disruptions have been reported here by electricity companies in the area since 6:15 PM on Friday.
FirstEnergy showed 4,010 customers without power in Berks County, with the highest numbers in Cumru, Exeter, Kenhorst, Robeson and Reading. No outages were reported in Lehigh County, but Northampton had 1,422 customers.
PECO showed the following number of customers affected by outages: Montgomery County, 8,293; Bucks County 6,525; Chester County, 3,109; Delaware county, 42; and Philadelphia, 4,043.
Saturday and Sunday are forecast to have highs in the low 80s, with a high in the low 90s on Monday and mid 90s on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
The National Weather Service is forecasting higher-than-normal temperatures in the Northeast next week, which could lead to a heat wave in southeastern Pennsylvania as the mercury rises into the 90s. (Courtesy of the National Weather Service) AccuWeather did not have a meteorologist available Friday evening to be interviewed about the possible heat wave in southeastern Pennsylvania, but did provide a link to a broader article titled “Dangerous Heat Wave Threatens More Than Next Week 135 million people from Chicago to Philadelphia.”
