MAG5035

42 minutes ago, Yardstickgozinya said:

I was just looking up some data on late season events and I found this one that I don't believe i've heard talked about here. Obviously it's an anomaly and i'm not using it to prove any points here, but nevertheless, who would have thought you could have piled 21" of snow in Harrisburg, only a few days away from May. 

The April 27-28, 1928, blizzard was a record-shattering late-season storm that dumped up to 21 inches of snow on Harrisburg, PA, and over 35 inches in surrounding mountainous regions. It paralyzed central Pennsylvania, closing businesses, causing widespread power outages, and breaking trees due to the weight of the snow on foliage. 

 

Key Facts About the 1928 Event:

• Impact on Harrisburg: The city was "buried" under a 21-inch snowfall, described by The Patriot as one of the worst storms in history, bringing life to a complete standstill.
• Regional Impact: The storm hit the Mid-Atlantic and Appalachian regions, with Pennsylvania being hardest hit, though mountainous West Virginia saw up to 40 inches.
• Transportation Chaos: The storm stalled travel, including stranding the "Red Arrow" train for three days near Paoli, PA, with passengers forced to burn seat cushions for heat.
• Meteorological Significance: The storm was a "bomb cyclone" (rapidly dropping pressure) that hit in late April, making it one of the most devastating, late-season, and rare snow events of the 20th century

 

I’ve mentioned it somewhere in one of these threads in the past. I don’t believe that event dumped anywhere near that much snow in Harrisburg though. The NOAA NOWdata at Harrisburg/Middletown for those two days has over 3” of precip but only 2.4” of snow. 

It did dump those kinds of amounts back this way and on down the Apps thru WV and KY though. The local station here had something on it a few years ago. 

https://www.wtaj.com/weather/the-late-april-snowstorm-of-1928/

4 hours ago, Jns2183 said:

Watching that band gave me flashbacks to 2016. I also think it's worth noting how that south Central pa was the jackpot in that historical storm. Even accounting for "climate loading"—the observed increase in high-intensity precipitation events due to a warmer, more moisture-rich atmosphere the return period for
30" 82 years
33" 145 years
36" 260 years
People here recorded those values during that storm with kmdt having 30.1"

That's a once in 3,6,10 generation type event and was only 10 years ago.

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That makes me wonder about the statistical anomaly of the stretch of winters from 92-96 (sans 94/95), which in additional to being 3 of State College’s top 5 snowiest winters (93/94 #1 with 109.3”) was the heyday of really big snowstorms back this way. 12/10/92, 93 Superstorm, and the 3/3/94 nor’easter were three events in basically two winters that delivered that kind of snow in this part of central PA. 

2.9” was what ended up calling the snow total here, about 1.3” from approx midnight to 8am Sunday morning and then another 1.6” from mid Sunday evening thru mid morning today. Some upslope stuff trying to set up so maybe can sneak a little bit more.

This brings my season total to a fairly meh 28.7”, generally on par with the last 4 winters if winter ended today. Plenty of time obviously but it’s starting to get late. 

Clipper tomorrow night will likely favor NW PA, Laurels and perhaps down I-80 over to the Poconos. Track of the low staying in the lakes doesn’t bode well for much making it into the Sus Valley (downsloping). Then we’ll see what we have to work with for Thursday’s wave. Today’s suite has GFS/Euro ops skirting most precip south, Canadian half decent, and NAM/RRFS more mix/rain confining snows to northern PA. GFS/Euro ensembles look a little more amped on average vs their ops. I think most of us should see precip from this wave, my main concern is p-type issues. 

1 hour ago, canderson said:

The storm to our east - NJ/NYC/LI and up into SNE is historic. Record stuff. 

Somebody in SE Mass is gonna end up with over 3 feet with that band sitting over them right now. Most reports around there are already nearly 2 feet. 

29 minutes ago, Itstrainingtime said:

I think there's a good chance that I'd communicate a little bit better professionally.  

Hey, I got lucky with my "forecast" but unfortunately, it's going to be my last one. And this is what I wanted to get off my chest last night - 

When significant winter storms are threatening our area, there's a group here at work that collaborate on how to handle adjusting operations schedules. I'm a part of it for 2 reasons; one, I'm in HR, and two, I'm looked at as the company's "weather authority" to some extent. This storm will be my last for providing my insight. Why?

It's become a pain. I was approached last Wednesday for early thoughts on the storm. I shared the same thing here at work that I shared here online. I gave probabilities that were intentionally vague being 4 days out. Then on Friday morning, I gave my "call" of 3-6". I was ridiculed. I was harassed. I was dare I say it, even threatened. Because, I was bombarded with snow maps. Snow map after snow map after snow map of every model from every Tom, Dick, (intentional use of that name) and Harry showing 13", 16", 20", 25" that were literally pushed in my face and told that I needed to change my call. I explained my thought, my reasoning as to why I thought they were all off. I said that yes, there would be those amounts, and yes, they would be close to our area, BUT I felt pretty good that it was going to slip east over the final 24 hours. They didn't want to hear it. (even though they came to me for my thoughts) 

I was hit up again on Saturday. Same thing, new day. Texts. Emails. More maps. Oh my, more maps. I'm not kidding, I was emailed and/or texted well over 70 snow maps on Friday and Saturday alone. I was asked once again about Sunday. I reiterated that Sunday during the day would be a non-issue. More flack. More hostility. Whatever. And you know what came next? Yesterday, I start getting texts. Emails. Calls. Why isn't it snowing? This is a bust. Is it even going to snow at all? I'm thinking "did you actually stop and listen to me at all?" And on and on it went.

Today, right now I'm sitting in my office at work. Alone. I am THE only one in the entire office building. Why? Despite the fact that every road was wet this morning, the decision was made to shut down. The decision was made on Friday. Here I am. Angry. Frustrated. Tired. And most of all, jaded. People today do not know how to act. They sure as hell don't listen. And it saddens me how people act. Hey, this storm was almost impossible to forecast...I mean really, like @pasnownut said...we were THAT close to something much bigger. And that's just it. If you forecast the weather today, you better have really thick skin because if you're wrong, your ass is grass. The amount of hatred and mocking online yesterday towards WGAL's storm team was sickening. This was probably one of the hardest events to predict ever. I had my reasons for my call but as I said...I still lucked out. At least mostly.  

One big problem today is snow maps. Everyone has access to them. I had someone hand me a print out of the GFS 12z on Friday afternoon. I asked her where she got it and she said she googled how to access snow maps online. And these people see these maps and it's assumed that they're accurate. And then I have to explain why I don't think they are. Whatever. Snow maps have their purpose and they're fun to look at but they ARE driving a wedge between the general public and people who forecast weather for a living. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. They can't win. MU's biggest weakness is conveying those truths in a professional way. He's arrogant to a fault. That's on him. But for the rest of the met world...I sincerely feel sorry for all of you. The public has way too much access to way too much (false) information and it is putting them in an impossible situation. 

I'm out. No more forecasts from me. Just not worth it. 

 

I could be wrong but it sounds like everyone at work just wanted the extra day off, sound reasoning be darned. Which would make that really unfair for you to take that kind of flak. You certainly made a better forecast call than I did there. 

The other part of your post is a really good example of why I personally don’t do the YouTube/F-Book/Twitter Met stuff. I’d much rather discuss in a place like this forum where enough of the regulars (certainly not all haha) for the most part understand the difficulty in nailing this stuff down. Don’t ever be discouraged making your forecast calls in here.

31 minutes ago, WmsptWx said:

Like that asshole deserves the attaboy.

Speaking of egos, I wonder how DT’s doing today haha. 

On 2/19/2026 at 2:29 PM, mahantango#1 said:

From our good friend  DT:

NEXT TIME SOME IDIOT ARGUES THE GFS HANDLES EAST COAST SNOWSTORMS WELL...

 

       TIME TO CANCEL THE GFS..... 

 

    33 INCHES OF SNOW DC ? Yeah its broken

 

 every Single run of the operational GFS for the past 3 days has showed a massive historic record shattering blizzard for some portion of the Middle Atlantic...

 

 now even the GFS AI is saying "WTF op-GFS !? " 

 

The 6z and 12z GFS ensembles are waaaaaay east 

 

The problem is that the operational GFS goes Bonkers with the 500mb LOW. It is over developing the 500 LOW amplification and it grabs the surface LOW and pulls a NW to just east of Wallops Island on the lower Virginia Eastern shore. Then every run of op- GFS stalls the LOW for 24 hours producing this incredibly heavy snow area from a monster rapidly intensifying Coastal nor'easter.

 

This is nonsense.  

 

There is a better chance of monkeys flying out of my ass on Sunday night or Monday morning then this solution as proposed by the operational GFS of a massive historic BLIZZARD of record shattering proportions in the Mid-Atlantic actually concurring

 

As I stated in the video there is an upstream kicker and all the other models see it except for the operational GFS.  

 

When the GFS AI and GFS ensembles don't even support this kind of extreme solution then you know the operational GFS is just busted.

 

I figure it's about 12 hours before somebody starts blaming immigrants for fucking with the model.

I mean yea DC wasn’t the epicenter, but let’s not forget where the Euro was with the coastal aspect of this thing as recently as like Friday. 

20 minutes ago, Itstrainingtime said:

Lot of 5-6" reports from over there. I must have just caught some of that heavier stuff overnight. I was shocked when I went out early this morning. I easily had 4" on my car. 

There was also a corridor of heavier snow reports along the Franklin/Adams border that translated to that same band that’s produced a couple 6”+ reports east of State College and continued down thru northern MD. That 12.3” is a Cocorahs report.

29ºF and snowing decently at the moment with the band that just dropped in from the north. This stuff looks like it has some enhancement from Ontario with the due northerly fetch so maybe it’ll actually do something this morning. For now 1.2” fell overnight to bring storm total to 2.5”. Been pretty breezy with a high gust overnight of 35.6 mph on the station. 

Gonna have a look at totals vs the map I put out when this thing completely wraps up.  Did not expect the York/Lancaster realm to do as bad as it did. I knew it was boom or bust potential there but I expected at least warning criteria to be met there fairly easily. The temps were an absolute killer yesterday with the lighter precip phase of the storm. IVT set up further east as noted and I think the storm really exploded just a hair late.

It is living up to its billing in NJ/NYC/LI and beyond. There’s already scattered 20”+ reports in NJ and LI, as well as a 71mph gust on the tip of LI. Official obs in Central Park, La Guardia, and JFK all reported 15” or so around 7am with a good bit of snow to go. 

It’s been a much more powdery snow with this 2nd wave that made it back here a few hours ago. The streets and stuff have caved with temps now back to 28ºF but the rates just aren’t doing it here. I only have about 0.7” new in all that time. Combined with the initial snow that came through overnight last night into first thing Sun morning that brings me right around 2” total for the storm so far. 

27 minutes ago, canderson said:

It’s melting and barley even snowing but I’d guess .25” or so

Not gonna make it to 1” probably - big bust, but a very difficult system to forecast

This is one of those situations I wish there was a radar located somewhere in the middle of the Sus Valley to see the banding better, as there are clearly some haves and have nots when it comes to where there are more significant accumulating snow areas. 

511 cameras in and around the Harrisburg area look half decent though, showing some of the primary roads caving. 

Nice placement of the comma head on central/eastern PA. So far the coastal low is still pretty close to the Delmarva coastline and hasn’t started to fade east yet. 

Accumulating snow has finally resumed here for the first time in the last like 10-12 hours as that renewed surge of steady precip backing west has reached the I-99 corridor.

Winds are up too, with a high gust of 26mph (NNW). Temp down to 30ºF

Surface obs and radar line up pretty good showing the convergence zone for that inverted trough band. 

It has finally begun to snow again here, lightly. Temps are back below freezing as well back to 31ºF. At this point I’d consider another 1-2” from this event a win with that band setting up to the east of here. 

I-81 from Shippensburg on south is starting to look snowy on the 511 cams. 

Additionally US 322 goes from snow on the ground on the Lewistown side of the narrows to bare ground on the Mifflintown side. 

21 minutes ago, Itstrainingtime said:

That was me multiple times. I was corrected by several here (correctly) that the storm isn't the same. However, I stand by my assertion that the pattern is. And that is what is behind these negative changes we're seeing.

Boxing Day 2010 didn’t have the inverted trough and had more of an actual sharp precip gradient from nothing to a bunch. This system has plenty of precip thrown back into central PA right now. Temps are the issue, I said a couple times the last few days temps and rates were going to be a key thing for I-81 corridor and NW. Unfortunately I didn’t expect surface temps to be warm enough to actually cause a lot of this stuff to be rain in the Sus Valley lower elevations today.. I was more worried about rates.

That puts more reliance to make it up on the direct banding from the coastal as it winds up and eventually turns things over as we get towards this evening. The big change there is the formerly aggressive guidance bringing the low in up close is now quickly jumping it ENE over or perhaps just SE of the benchmark. Which actually would be another difference from Boxing Day haha. That tracked straight up well inside the Benchmark to the edge of Cape Cod. The low kicking east faster is going to reduce the time the Sus Valley (esp York/Lancaster) can get any stronger bands from the coastal. 

Current obs. 

Just now, WmsptWx said:

Puking snow currently 

I think your in a good spot to be a winner for that inverted trough band. 

Revised map, I left some room for this to end up a bit better than where the trends are heading but I might not have backed off enough. Totals include what snow has already fallen.

Also here’s CTP’s revised snow map, very elevational now. 

I know I said I was only doing one snowmap, but I’ll be making a revised one here while we’re still early. 

I wasn’t home all morning but I measured 1.3” at my parents hours 4 miles up the road at 10am, pretty similar to what it looked like here. That has melted some with temps above freezing and really light rates, so I cleared my measuring surfaces. Got some nice returns that have developed overhead in the last half hour, just needs to translate to the ground more. 

34ºF and about 1-1.5” on the grass/decks here, not much precip falling at the moment. Very wet snowfall. 

I saw some of the early 6z stuff come out before I went to sleep early this morning and I wasn’t too enthused with the trends. The more robust guidance is now fading the coastal low pretty hard after it only just reaches off the Delmarva. Banking on that low coming in closer was a key part of me bringing back the higher amounts further into the Sus Valley on my map, but I did reflect my thoughts on that as well as surface temp issues during the daytime portion of this event. 

Short range/high range seems to be zeroing on the inverted trough band centering somewhere between here and Harrisburg. If the steadier stuff developing just east of I-99 doesn’t push back this way some this afternoon I’ll be sunk for getting anything near a warning total. 

Pretty good start so far… moderate rate and 31ºF. About a half inch on non paved surfaces.

6 minutes ago, AMDEW80 said:

Nice map.  Not going to lie, I thought the original post question mark was… the forecast 

Haha I’m glad someone said something, I fixed the original post so it should be visible there now too. 

Also, snow has started here.

7 minutes ago, Jns2183 said:

Can't see picture

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Let me know if you see it.

CTP’s sending it, remaining watch area to warnings and a few extra north central counties in it as well. 4-9”


.

Alright here’s my one and only map for this storm. Tried my best for a blend of things. My concerns from my post earlier are still valid and noted here as well.

5 hours ago, MAG5035 said:

I’m gonna throw out a map at some point I think, though I better do it soon since it looks like the first snow moves into the central counties by 12-2am. Might wait to see some early 0z stuff. 

I still consider the bust potential at least moderate in the corridor between I-81 (including Harrisburg metro) and the Laurels. Rates will be crucial with the first half or so of this event occurring during the daytime in that area with the temps near freezing. High res models kind of hint at this with their more elevational look to snow totals in the ridge and valley. On top of all that is that this is the region of central PA most likely to see that inverted trough related band set up somewhere. That feature’s about the only thing the Euro has been modelling consistently with this system. I think where that sits the longest will put down a narrow stripe of 8-12” within what I currently think will be a general 4-7” for this corridor. 

Still definitely some bust potential for York/Lancaster counties as well in terms of the top end potential. Obviously short term/high res guidance like the HRRR and NAM throttle this part of the Sus Valley, while the globals do not. GFS has tightened a bit, only clipping the far end of Lancaster with double digits. I’m weighing a bit more toward high res stuff at this point but this is where how far inside that coastal low can get becomes very important.