More than 3,500 people in the D.C. area were without power late Sunday afternoon after a bout of severe weather whipped through the region on Saturday afternoon, knocking down trees, blowing out car windows and spawning reports of funnel clouds.
According to Pepco’s outage map, about 1,500 people in the District, Prince George’s and Montgomery counties were without power late Sunday afternoon. In Virginia, Dominion Power reported almost 2,000 people without power, nearly all of them in the Northern Virginia area.
National Weather Service officials said an unseasonable cold front is to blame for the damage.
Meteorologist Stephen Konarik said an “early fall-type” cold front mixed with the warm, moist air that had hung over the area earlier on Friday and Saturday.
Mr. Konarik said funnel clouds were spotted in Chantilly and in Anne Arundel County.
“That helped lead to showers and thunderstorms,” he said. “We got several reports of funnel clouds, but no confirmed touch-downs or tornado-related damage.”
Earlier reports from the Associated Press stated that between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. Saturday, the temperature at
Washington Dulles International Airport dropped from 89 degrees to 64 degrees.
By Saturday night, close to 200,000 customers were without power.
As part of the same weather system, two tornadoes touched down in New York City, but no injuries were reported.
The storm is the latest in a string of severe weather that’s beaten the D.C. area this year. In late June a microburst damaged homes in the Bladensburg area, and a week later a powerful windstorm known as a derecho blasted the area with high winds that knocked out power to more than a million people and left hundreds of thousands in the dark for more than a week.
Despite the stormy weekend, Mr. Konarik said this week’s weather would be an improvement, with “barely a cloud through Friday.”
• Meredith Somers can be reached at msomers@washingtontimes.com.
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