Alert: Watch, Warnings Issued as Storms Move In

This line is coming on like gangbusters in NW, got very dark all of a sudden and the wind has started--could be big.

Raining pretty hard and windy here in Falls Church... no lightning or thunder yet that Ive noticed.

Wow! An early morning storm. Looks like CWG got caught flat-footed this time.

Skies darkened quickly (like 10 minutes ago), wind just picked up big-time and now we have a driving rain and the first clap of thunder. How did all of this arrive so quickly? Didn't anticipate until early afternoon at latest. Also don't think we'll need that severe t-storm watch until 4 p.m. -- I'm guessing the atmosphere won't have time to recover from this go-round to produce any severe storms later, but that's just a guess...

Just hoping this storm cools things off - the temp jumped from 85 to 91 in less than 10 as the storm hit us. Weird.

Yep, that wall of storms couldn't miss us. Woo hoo!

All of the above that I described, BTW, was at Fort Belvoir. I noticed on radar that the storm line seemed to intensify (AGAIN) after crossing the Potomac into southern MD. Why does this happen so often? If we have severe t-storms in southeastern Fairfax County and they cross over into MD, they OFTEN set down tornadoes after the trip over the river. Have seen this happen numerous times over the past 20 years, most notably in the devastating La Plata tornado 2 (3?) years ago. What's up with that??

Light rain, no lightning, nothing spectacular in Bethesda. Skies are brightening outside my window.

VaStateofMind: There's some evidence that storms west of the Bay may be enhanced by local Bay breeze patterns. That is, cool air off the bay interacts with hot air just to the west over land, intensifying upward motions and instability.

Power went out for about 10-15 minutes a little while before the line of storms came through. That's the second time this summer our power has gone out for no reason at all when the the closest storm was 15+ miles away. Hmmm...

It got dark, really really windy, started pouring, thundered a lot, then stopped. There is sun peaking through the clouds now.

Too much excitement so early in the morning. I wonder if this is an omen to the weather later on...

Zilch in NW Montgomery. Sky darkened, a few rumbles of thunder, but not enough rain to register in a rain gauge.

Wind, darkened sky, distant thunder, small whitecaps at mouth of West River in Shady Side.

Got really dark really quick and dust started to fly like crazy. The wind picked up fast and shook everything pretty well. Theres some lightning mixed in but its not too strong mostly just a lot of wind and wind driven rain

Carol -- Yep, the morning storms were definitely a surprise. Sometimes, after the fact, you can look back at the models and and see where maybe you should have noticed a particular feature or hint of something. But in this case, looking back at model data from last night and this morning, there really wasn't anything there that would have justified calling for morning storms (until they were on radar and approaching). Even with all our cool technology, Mother Nature can still pull a fast one every once in a while.

So is that it for today?