Wednesday afternoon thunderstorms cause limited but significant damage in Meadville

A mid-afternoon summer pop-up thunderstorm produced torrential rains and damaging winds on Wednesday, June 22 in Meadville.

Thunder could be heard at a distance starting around 3:14 p.m., with the worst of the storms rolling in around 3:44 p.m. The system moved from northeast to southwest and lasted for several minutes with winds topping an estimated 60 miles per hour.

The event began with rain increasing in intensity before those straight-line winds started swirling.

At the height of the storm, winds tore the front porch off Sullivan's Kitchen and Produce at the corner of Second and Walnut streets. The metal roofing from the porch was blown into a nearby roadside ditch with broken wooden supports littering the entrance to the business. A portion of the metal cap of the roof was standing upright after being peeled back by the winds.

Further west along Second Street, the Precision Pro Auto Body Shop lost its street-side sign and fallen tree limbs of various sizes dotted the same area.

On Meadville-Hamburg Road behind the Herring Gas shop, a tree fell across the roadway and took down nearby power lines. Town of Meadville Public Works employees spent much of Thursday morning working to clear the remains of the tree from the road while neighboring houses had limb debris in their yards.

On Edison Street, an Entergy power pole adjacent to the old Toad House-Jitney Jungle building and across the street from Family Dollar was leaning, but had not been repaired by the power company by Thursday afternoon.

Limited power outages were also reported along Mississippi Highway 556 near the Meadville town barn.

No injuries were reported as a result of the storm, with clean-up efforts getting started after the weather subsided after 5 p.m.