A slow-moving storm ripped through Delaware County on Thursday, bringing heavy rain, lightning and hail that flooded intersections, stranded drivers and shut parts of roads across the county. Emergency traffic showed no injuries, but crews were still dealing with vehicle rescues, a lightning-sparked fire and road closures as the storm crawled east.
Timothy Habich said hail piled up several feet deep at Trimble Blvd and Swiftwater Lane in Brookhaven, where highway workers had to use a backhoe to clear the roadway. He also said side street flooding in the borough came after storm drains clogged with leaves and hail, forcing police and highway personnel to work the drains while buses were delayed at The Christian Academy.
The storm entered from the west about 2 p.m. and kept emergency dispatches busy until after 3 p.m., with the heaviest problems concentrated in the western half of the county. A National Weather Service tornado watch that had been set to run until 7 p.m. was canceled by 4 p.m., but a flash flood warning stayed in effect until 6:45 p.m. as water continued to pool in low spots and vehicles got stuck in rising runoff and on hail-covered pavement.
That mix of rain and hail turned up in several places at once. Edgmont Avenue was closed between Upland and Forrestview because hail blocked the road, and PennDOT worked to reopen it. In Parkside and elsewhere, hail was heavy enough to leave roads impassable for a time, while Brookhaven officials dealt with clogged drains and a tree strike on the wooded property of the Brookhaven Swim Club that left a tree burning after lightning hit it.
Despite the disruption, the storm did not produce a large outage event. PECO’s county total stayed below 100 customers, and the heaviest rainfall totals remained modest but uneven, with Philadelphia International Airport at 0.51 inch by 4:30 p.m., an Upper Chichester spotter at 0.95 inch and Swarthmore at 0.92 inch. That spread matters because the storm was not a single uniform downpour; it was a fast-moving patchwork of hail, water and lightning that punished some neighborhoods far harder than others.
The question now is less about the storm’s intensity than its aftereffects. Rain was expected at times through the night, with temperatures falling to the low 40s by daybreak Friday and rain continuing at times Friday as a cold front neared. What remains unclear is how many rescues and flooded locations were recorded across the county before the water finally receded.
