Oh, the weather outside was frightful yesterday as Old Man Winter blew hats, gloves and Penn State students around the State College area.

"I glided to class," Ashley Robinson (senior-accounting) said.

Wind gusts were recorded over 40 mph for most of the day, said Mike McAuliffe of AccuWeather. He said the peak wind gust was 57 mph, which was recorded at 11 a.m. by the National Weather Service Forecast Office of State College.

"The wind was pretty ridiculous today," Jason Harchick (freshman-engineering) said.

Paul Ruskin, Office of Physical Plant spokesman, said a 45 mph speed-limit sign was blown away by a gust going the same speed as the sign posted at about 9 a.m. yesterday. The only damage reported was to trees and tree limbs, he said.

McAuliffe said yesterday's storm was not unusual for this time of year.

"You do have storms tracking across the Great Lakes region. ... Once in a while, you'll have a strong storm like this, one or two per year on average," he said. The cause of the wind was an area of low pressure heading north across Ohio into New York, McAuliffe said, which caused winds that grew steadily stronger from the west to the northwest.

Mike Cullura (junior-science) said he was not surprised by yesterday's storm.

"I've come to expect it. You never know what to expect at Penn State," he said.

The storm did not catch Penn State officials off guard.

"We knew the storm was coming a few days ago, so we had plenty of warning. We were able to take precautions," Ruskin said.

Those precautions included tying down materials around the many campus construction areas.

"The contractors tied things down [and] we stored materials in trailers. We don't have storage available in central campus and some things are stored at remote sites," Ruskin said.

Fences surrounding the construction sites were the last defense against materials blowing away from the areas; however, Ruskin said if something from one of the sites were to damage someone's property or hurt a pedestrian, the university and contractors do have liability insurance.

"The liability does depend on being positive that the debris came from a particular construction area and the particular details of each case," he said.