{"id":242492,"date":"2026-07-13T19:34:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T19:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/242492\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T19:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T19:34:10","slug":"thunderstorm-heavy-winds-pummel-lower-merion-outages-storm-damage-linger-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/242492\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunderstorm, Heavy Winds Pummel Lower Merion; Outages, Storm Damage Linger"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lower Merion suffered the first in a series of ‘microbursts’ that damaged trees and infrastructure throughout the Philly area. <\/p>\n

\n Jul 13, 2026 9:29 am EDT | Updated Jul 13, 2026 9:41 am EDT <\/p>\n

LOWER MERION, PA \u2014 Storm damage and power outages continue to linger Monday in Lower Merion after a “microburst” in the township pushed 70 mph gusts during Saturday’s heavy storms, officials said.<\/p>\n

Saturday’s thunderstorms brought at least four microbursts \u2014 an air column that’s pushed downward during a thunderstorm, which then bursts heavy wind in all directions \u2014 to the Philadelphia area, according to the National Weather Service.<\/p>\n

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The first recorded microburst happened at 2:44 p.m. in Lower Merion, pushing gusts of 60 to 70 mph gusts that caused power outages while damaging trees and infrastructure.<\/p>\n

At least 55 Lower Merion roadways were still at least partially blocked by trees as of Sunday morning, when the township lifted a state of emergency.<\/p>\n

Nearly 7,500 lost power \u2014 about a third of the township. There are currently 1,484 homes and buildings without power as of Monday morning, according to PECO.<\/p>\n

Residents without power can go to any Lower Merion firehouse to cool off and charge their devices.<\/p>\n

Lower Merion’s ban on gas leaf blower use has been suspended through Saturday as residents, contractors and township crews clear storm debris.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lower Merion suffered the first in a series of ‘microbursts’ that damaged trees and infrastructure throughout the Philly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242249,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[183,185,184,186],"class_list":["post-242492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lower-merion","tag-lower-merion","tag-lower-merion-headlines","tag-lower-merion-news","tag-lower-merion-township"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}