Within a couple of hours on Monday evening, a notably hot day in the Washington area became a spectacularly stormy day as winds rose, rain pelted down and trees toppled.
As dark skies turned an angry orange at sunset in the wake of the turbulence, authorities counted small forests of fallen trees, with at least 100 reported in the District alone, according to reports reaching the National Weather Service.
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A tree came down on a house on Webster Street NE in the District, and in Takoma Park trees and the wires they pulled down forced the closing of several roads. A tree landed on a house in one block of Piney Branch Road in Montgomery County, Md., and another tree fell on another house in another block of Piney Branch, officials said.
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At one point, Pepco reported 13,000 customers without electricity, mostly in the eastern part of the District and adjoining sections of Maryland.
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There were no immediate reports of injury.
Thunder pealed, hailstones fell in spots, and a 67 mph gust was measured in the District at one point.
“I haven’t seen anything like this” in years, said Lori Olson, who witnessed the gusty deluge from the Columbia Heights area of the District.
Other people stared out windows that seemed almost covered by cascades of water from the furious ra-infall. It appeared to come from two fierce storms, one that drove southeast across Montgomery County, through the District and into Prince George’s, and another that swept southeastward on a line roughly parallel to Interstate 66.
Rain poured in the center of Fairfax County.
One man took a wry view of the downpours.
In Falls Church, said Matt Erwin with calm judiciousness, the pouring rain was “short of torrential.” But he allowed, it was “very heavy.”
Perhaps not coincidentally, the storms came on the evening of the year’s hottest day, when the mercury in Washington climbed to 97 degrees.