Wind

    The frequency of thunderstorms in Pennsylvania also makes the state vulnerable to wind events.  The following synopsis discusses the results for each county within the state of Pennsylvania regarding wind events from 1959-2000.

The following is a map of Pennsylvania with each county outlined.  This map is a visual representation of the number of wind events per square mile           x 10 ^-2. Along the bottom of the map there is a legend that describes what value each color represents, each color is an increment of 10.  From this map we can see that the southeast and western portions of the state experience the greatest number of wind events per square mile.  Each county was evaluated and the number of each event that occurred was recorded.

    This first chart provides a visual interpretation of the distribution of wind events per county.  The x-axis represents the individual counties, the y-axis is the number of wind events with intervals of 50.This data was acquired through The National Climactic Data Center which provides tallied weather events per county ranging from tornadoes, lightning, hail, floods, wind, and the like.  A wind event is characterized by containing damage reports and wind speeds greater than 50 knots.

    This second table represents the time of year which is most prone to wind event occurrence in Pennsylvania. The month of July has the highest number of wind events with 1,075, though June and August have a large number as well.  This can be confirmed by the fact that these months fall within the time of year where Pennsylvania receives its greatest number of thunderstorms.  It should be noted, however, that the numbers are not exact representations as the wind events were originally recoded by county and more than one county can experience the same wind event at one particular time.  Therefore, duplicate wind events for one particular day were recorded as a single wind event. 

Table 2: This second table represents the time of year which is most prone to wind event occurrence in Pennsylvania

   This third table is a representation of the time of day that is most prone to wind events.  Differentiation between the times of day, regarding morning, afternoon, and night, were based upon the public’s general understanding of these time brackets.  Each wind event is listed below in the table by the time of their occurrence.  Times are in 24 hours and the times of occurrence are rounded to the hour. 

Table 3: Each wind event is listed below in the table by the time of their occurrence

    The fourth table is documenting the time of day that witnesses the most wind events.  Due to gaps in the available data, not all time periods were accurately accounted for.  To compensate, the day was broken down into hour intervals and the number of wind events that fell within each hour time period was recorded. This table is based upon data provided in Table 3. Within this table, the day is broken down into early morning, morning, afternoon and evening time periods; these times were based upon the general classification of times within the general public.  The time of day that has had the highest number of wind events is afternoon, with 1645 wind events. 

Table 4: This table represents the time of day that witnesses the most wind events 

    The fifth table is a representation of the Pennsylvania county populations and is included for reference for table 6 and its following chart. These populations are valid as of the 2001 Pennsylvania census.

Table 5:  This table consists of the county populations 

     The sixth table is the number of wind events per person per county.  These numbers were reached by dividing the number of wind events for a particular county by that county’s population.  To keep the data uniform, five places after the decimal place were used, which required rounding in some cases.  Philadelphia had the lowest number of wind events per person and Sullivan County had the highest number of wind events per person. It should be noted that Philadelphia has the greatest population. 

Table 6:  This table is the number of wind events per person per county

    This second chart provides a visual interpretation of the distribution of wind events per person per county.   The x-axis represents the individual counties, the y-axis is the wind events per person per county with intervals of 0.001.