577 mph winds in Atlantic City; 400 mph in Philly!? Weather service wind instruments go haywire
"Don't be alarmed," a National Weather Service meteorologist said assuringly.
Shortly before 6 p.m. Thursday, the National Weather Service’s automated observing system reported an onshore gust of 577.2 mph at Atlantic City Airport.
This was about two hours after 402.7 mph gust from the east-northeast at Philadelphia International Airport.
“Don’t be alarmed,” Trent Davis, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Mount Holly, said Thursday night.
Yes, those would have blown away any previous records, and possibly blown the Atlantic City Boardwalk all the way to Philadelphia, or what’s left of it after its 400 mph gusts.
Outside of a tornado or tropical storm, the strongest wind gust ever measured and verified on earth was 231 mph, in April 1934, on the summit of Mount Washington, in New Hampshire.
But the readings were the result of a software glitch, and by late Thursday night the problem appeared to have been resolved.
“Otherwise, it’s quiet,” Davis said.
The false reports did stir an amusing twitter tempest among the nonplussed.