Lightning, Thunder Rumble On A Summer Tuesday Night

The summer storm that rolled into town a couple hours ago was brief but powerful: There are a number of incidents about downed trees all over Manhattan (see the Gothamist Newsmap), such as "Trees down at West Side Hwy & 70th St," a "downed tree on a taxi" on E 86th St, and "Tree down on a car" at Riverside Dr & 101st St (a tipster writes, "Man was stuck under car for 20 minutes after an entire tree fell on him while he was driving in Riverside Park on 101 st)—some even have requests for "additional chain saws"—we hope no one was hurt.

Plus, there was a "sidewalk shed collapse" at Madison Ave & 99th St and "storm damage" at Central Park. (We're not sure if a "partial building collapse" at Dupont St & Oakpoint Ave in the Bronx is due to the storm.)

Above are some photographs from readers of last night's display.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in News on August 19, 2009 1:20 AM

Comments [rss]

Clarice City

As I was opening my windows to get more of that cool breeze (in my four story walk up with no AC) I felt ice chunks hitting my hands. Hail?! Yeah, hail. My dog was eating it up off the floor and looked pretty happy about it.

maevemealone

I missed the whole thing! I guess the bar I was in was completely soundproof... I had no idea it stormed this bad.

nycbrent

I ran around the park this morning and it's interesting how you can't even tell there was a major storm south of the reservoir, but north of the reservoir looks like a tornado went through.

EricRoberts

Interesting. Maybe that explains all the commenters who didn't notice anything.

Joe Schumacher

I should have taken a screen shot of last night's radar, but that's exactly what happened. Within the larger area of rain there was a smaller, intense area that crossed the Hudson and Upper West Side and then went up through Central Park and Harlem before heading into the Bronx.

JenChungsBaby

That was some scary shit. We actually huddled in the hallway of our apartment last night with all the doors shut because the windows were rattling so hard and hail was hitting us all around. Central Park is completely messed up this morning. There's a huge tree that looks like Olmstead himself planted it just south of the North Meadow near the road on the west side at 97th street that's 100 percent uprooted. I took a picture, the trunk of this tree must be seven feet across and it's just gone.

gossipgirl

How did I sleep through this?

Damnit

A tree fell on my car on 95th and CPW, it's not pretty, but the car across the street got it worse. (I'd guesstimate four to six cars in total) I was able to drive away. ESU had everything cleaned up in about an hour and might have done more damage than the tree did. The shift sergeant told me there were trees down all up and down riverside drive.

It all happen in a few seconds. We were walking home as it began to rain, just as we got inside it started coming down, but by the time we were upstairs hail, and rain galore. (Almost pushing our AC back at us through the window!) We couldn't even make out the other side of the street.

JenChungsBaby

It was green. I was out on my terrace watching the lightening for a while when it was over Jersey and there was a big round green cloud over the west side. That blew away and around three minutes later a green wall of water/hail/wind came in over the Hudson and it was just lights out. Then the windows started rattling and I grabbed my kid and sheltered in our hallway until it passed.

meganromer

We had a tree fall on our cab at 86th and CPW... it was wild! Everyone inside was fine, and luckily only the windshield was seriously hurt, but it was a huge tree. I saw the lightning strike, and then there was a thump... crazy!

http://twitpic.com/efs18