MAG5035

Cloud cover and associated lack of CAPE generation tomorrow would figure to be an inhibitor in severe around here with a couple waves of rain (maybe some thunder) progged to traverse PA during the day. 3k NAM seems a little more suggestive of getting some CAPE into NW PA prior to frontal passage there in the early afternoon. Helicity/shear is moderate-strong, so the combo could suggest some imbedded rotating elements to any line or bow segment that develops there. Think for our area the biggest potential will be with the FROPA, which could bring some damaging winds to the surface if we have a fairly well developed line that comes across. Both HRRR and 3k are generating little CAPE from the eastern 2/3s of PA. Nothing like the Midwest today, which is solidly in the warm sector and daytime heating. Pretty wild to see 1500-2500 CAPEs generated in northern ILL/IN and all the way up into the lower Peninsula of Michigan with widespread temps in the 70s in those areas.

Sustained >40mph and/or gusts 58mph or greater for a period greater than at least an hour. Yep I was ninja-ed haha. Probably looking at advisories of the 50mph gust variety with this, outside of Cambria/Somerset which may have just enough for a warning. High res stuff doesn’t look extremely crazy. 850mb winds are only getting to the 45-55kt range overnight tomorrow after the frontal passage.

I would take what happened in March/Early April 2018 after that insanely warm February again in a heartbeat. Had almost 2 feet of snow after March 1st and still my biggest snow event personally since Feb 2010 (March 21st 13.2”). Not sure if that’s in the cards this winter but that was def one of the wildest late winter reversals I remember. That was the last winter with an early Easter too.

Most noteworthy weather item I see in the short-medium range is a strong frontal passage this coming Wed Night, which has been pretty persistent on guidance. Perhaps worthy of some kind of a brief changeover at the end and a sharp temp drop with some windy weather Thursday. Aside from a brief shot of some cold tomorrow and tomorrow night, thats about it in terms of cold or snow the next 6-10+ by the looks of it. Thru 15 days all ensembles maintain +EPO/WPO and only take a really negative PNA to a somewhat less negative PNA. Until we turn the tables with those teleconnections we’re going to continue to deal with mild, modified Pacific air at the lower levels dominating the lower 48 even if we get NAO blocking that starts developing and helps undercut some storms. Just the story of the winter really. It was 53 for a high here this afternoon, despite 18z models initializing with <540 dm thickness over most of C-PA. There’s just no low level cold.

I’m pretty sure the real reason it’s being winterized is because of the new expanded CFP. Home teams in the bracket would be hosting at their own stadium for the first round of the playoffs (slated for Dec 20-21 this coming season) . Not that you could do much to winterize the parking situation with all the grass parking around the stadium if it were to actually act like winter in mid-late December.

I think he’ll look pretty good on that conclusion thru about the first week or so of March. Beyond that is still to be determined. Some reversal in the PNA/EPO/NAO/AO are noted in the longer term with the NAO/AO being shown to neutralize and go back negative by the end of the range of regular ensemble guidance. The Pac related stuff (EPO/PNA) is further out. Euro weeklies are more bullish than the GEFS extended dumping the EPO by mid month. MJO forecasts are mainly into 4 and maybe a bit of 5 (noticed the GEFS was into 3 today). FMA Phase 4 and 5 is not the blowtorch it is during DJF or JFM and 3 is a cold phase in March. So I don’t think the MJO is really a slam dunk using it to declare spring fully sprung before mid-March. Otherwise, this might be an understatement but I haven’t been particularly impressed with the Euro Weeklies performance this winter. The GEFS extended has been demonstrably better with temps at longer range (Euro weeklies have been too cold). I can see why Elliot’s all in on spring just going on how the rest of the winter has gone. We typically pay dearly at some point when we have a mostly warm late winter though. Whether or not that happens in time for it to matter ( for viable snow opportunities) is the main question I’m focused on when approaching later next month. Speaking of forecasts, here are the numbers I decided on for March with WB’s forecast competition. . I originally was leaning colder in the east but the first part of the month just looks too warm. I think unless we have a truly massive second half reversal in temps we’ll be struggling to get the numbers back down to average even with a second half cooldown that’s enough to generate a couple snow chances. That’s how I approached February and I actually picked small + departures in the east anticipating the second half of the month to eventually turn cold but it just never did get cold this month and the + departures all over the US have just run away like they did in December. I picked +5 in Minneapolis which is not a small departure and they’re still at +14ºF for Feb.

I might’ve had a mix right when it started. I got what appear to be pinger holes in my shade snow haha.

5 after nooners, 36°F and rain

I’ll do a late progress report as it pertains to meteorological winter (DJF) 1. C-D ish on average. I think most generally expected a warmer start to winter and the potential for storms and cold to be later in the winter. I did not anticipate the warm December the CONUS ended up with at all, that probably should’ve been a hint. We have had opportunities and some of them have delivered but it has just not wanted to be cold for any longer stretches this winter. And we’ve had a couple bigger storms but we haven’t had pattern alignments conducive for phasing, and it’s been mostly either southern or northern stream waves… which limited opportunities for a KU type event. 2. C+. The pattern itself has been overall more favorable than last year, especially with storm track. Most events have went under or tried to go under PA (transfer). We’ve only really had maybe a couple straight up cutters, and one of them ended up delivering my biggest snowfall of the season to date. There’s just been no cold air, there’s no persistent ridging in the PNA/EPO realm to help deliver any cold when it has actually been in Canada outside of the middle of Jan. 3. B. I’ve personally had two winter storm warning verified events and 4 other advisory caliber ones at my home, which isn’t half bad to this point. A one off big hitter sometime in March (like a March 22, 2018 or better) would get me to a total I would consider to be in the average range here. Same could be said anywhere else in C-PA and the northern Mid-Atlantic. And of course there’s that stripe of eastern PA in the Lehigh Valley/Poconos that is already near or at average. Honestly, that we’ve achieved that considering how warm the winter has been temp wise in the northern half of the country is a small miracle. 4. D. I’m big on pack retention, and this winter hasn’t been a good one for that. The middle 10days or so of Jan and getting to snowboard Blue Knob at 100% twice saves me from giving this criteria an F. 5. F. There just hasn’t been any cold pattern that has stuck this winter. The one we did get in January was delayed. The Jan 6 and 9th storms came before it was actually cold, and the below normal stuff came mainly centered on about 5 days or so, where we scored a couple decent advisory level northern branch systems. The MJO’s two week+ meandering in Phase 7 after running thru 4-5-6 and then subsequent failure to run thru 8-1-2 despite what is likely an all time record reversal of the SOI from Jan to Feb probably has a part in what sunk this month overall for any kind of a truly cold pattern. 6. F-. The hype in late Jan for what was being shown at the time in the weeklies/ long range ensembles was off the charts. Not necessarily in here, but some folks were all in on that 2010, 78, 58 type pattern. Reality ended up being meh but it’s been way worse in the snow dept, but the expectation of a big storm pattern and cold made this month a huge disappointment and later in the winter was where forecasts were being focused on for delivering the goods. If winter ended now I’d give it a C-, aided mainly by the snow we did get. But we got March, and I’m not writing anything off in that month yet.. esp second half of the month.

Also, meltdown of my gauge yielded 0.26”, so counting the extra 0.3” that fell (5.5” total) before I brought it in yielded a 21 to 1 ratio. Which looked on par with other obs that had SLR’s included.

It was pretty legit, I was out running errands whenever it arrived. I thought boy this could probably use a snow squall warning and I checked my phone and there was one already issued haha. Fresh wind driven coating and high gust of about 30mph. Despite all that and the temperature going from 28 to less than 22ºF at the height of the squall, no caving of any asphalt surface.

Had another 0.3” from a squall when I was out cleaning up earlier, so bump the total up to 5.5”. Gauge is melting down now so I’ll see if I can get a ratio. Winds are kicking up.

It’s possible, that area would’ve been right in line with the bigger totals further east. There were also 10+ totals reported all the way back in eastern Ohio with a stripe of warning totals just below the Pittsburgh metro.

Last event was my worst, or at least certainly the worst I’ve had anytime recently the way one that busted in the true central and north central. I got close to technically verifying a warning but was within the forecast range of 4-7”. Even up here roads took awhile to get snow covered and they never were super terrible at any point. Road crews were also really on this event as well.

5.2” is the final total here. Temp has fallen back to 23.5ºF My snow forecast looked like it did okay mostly. Obviously that impressive FGEN band really overachieved in a narrow stripe that carried all the way to the east and to the south in the LSV below Harrisburg it underachieved. I basically expected a general 3-5” and highlighted that dashed area to cover the expected area that narrow band was going to set up somewhere within, so I caught some of it and was a bit south overall and didn’t stretch it enough. And then came up short in a corridor just below the band in the southern tier. Dynamics and temps aloft were as advertised as evidenced by the fluff bomb that ensued within the band but didn’t expect surface temps to be the issue that they ended up being. Also didn’t realize that LWX had upped their totals to 5-8” in a large swath of their northern CWA yesterday prior to the event starting. That’s a brutal bust for them down there.

There’s been some half decent back building on PBZ radar. Starting to have a more NW-SE component to its movement. Have to see how well that translates over the mountains to the Sus Valley.

At about 4.5” here, with light to moderate rate. Temp down to 28ºF

Wow, it was about 2 hrs ago or so you posted that you were working on your first inch.

The 511 cams on US 322/22 on both sides of the Duncannon bridge look like they’re getting pounded too, as well as the rest of that stretch down to I-81.

Well I dunno where exactly in Harrisburg everyone there lives but it seems like it’s snowing everywhere in/around town there now looking at 511 cams. The 700mb FGEN band is setup overhead as well. This should pile up pretty fast.

Steadier stuff should be working into York/Lancaster here pretty directly by the looks of LWX radar.

Just got home here, was out for the evening. Nice event ongoing with 3.5” down and a nice moderately heavy rate currently. 29/28ºF

3:40 after nooners. 37º/16ºF light wind and cirrus overcast. Max wind gust of 38mph occurred around 4:30 this morning.

My bad haha I didn’t realize they divided up the warnings up that much.

Here’s some of the western part of that, CTP went warnings all southern tier and bumped up the advisories in the next tier to warnings. Western southern tier (Bedord/Fulton/Franklin) is 5-7 and Laurels is 6-8.