MAG5035

We're less than two weeks from the fall equinox, it's getting harder and harder for even the H-burg desert to get near that 90 degree mark without having a pretty anomalous airmass around. Looks really nice early next week after the passage of a system Sunday that might finally provide some regional rain chances. Also a chance of some thunderstorms mainly in the LSV tomorrow as well. The 12z Euro is actually quite robust on QPF especially in York/Lancaster counties.

Wow what a loop, if anyone sees this soon you can see the very robust storm in the Rockies wrapping in some of the wildfire smoke from California and Oregon. Insane how big those fires are and how much smoke is being generated. https://weather.cod.edu/satrad/?parms=regional-southwest-truecolor-96-1-100-1&checked=map-glm_flash&colorbar=undefined https://weather.cod.edu/satrad/?parms=subregional-Oregon-truecolor-96-1-50-1&checked=map-glm_flash&colorbar=undefined I'll add in this shortwave IR snapshot. Every one of those black spots in California is a wildfire area, and there's several more further up in Oregon too.

Yea I'm not sure what would be crazier on it's own there, the late 100+ heat or seeing the snow. Obviously the combination of the two things within a day is insane and historic, especially in terms of temp differentials and departures. But honestly the heat wave part of this is likely the more extreme thing. It's relatively normal for the Rockies to start seeing higher elevation snows in September and Denver in fact averages 1.3" in September. It would appear that the only snow record Denver would break looking at what's being forecast there is possibly the heaviest first snowfall of the season. The earliest is 4.2" Sept 3, 1961. https://denver.cbslocal.com/2020/09/04/weather-whiplash-colorado-record-heat-cold-snow/ This article also mentioned the last measurable September snow at Denver occurred September 24th, 2000. So this hasn't happened at all in September in the last two decades.

It'd be nice if some of that thunderstorm activity found it's way down here later on. But in the meantime the cloudcover all day from it has pretty much shut down what was looking like yet another high 80s day.

Lol i could just imagine the “ground is gonna be too warm for accumulation” discussion.

Yup sure do, Denver may have their first snow of the season with that trough dumping into the Rockies. The Euro has been showing that as well. How's this for insane...look at the Euro ensemble output for KDEN. Literally supposed to be 90-100 for a high for a few days right up to the day before it maybe snowing there.

I’d say the yard made a heck of a turnaround in the last two weeks. August 18th Today:

You must be forgetting our first three months of the year featured cutter after cutter after cutter...after cutter. That's okay I don't blame you lol. We were wet the past winter into the early spring. We would likely have been in a more advanced stage of drought (longer term effects) had the last winter been a dry one to go with the mild.

Full blown light to moderate drizzle currently. I think the Euro was better off when it was Dr. No (Dry), what a whiff on that in the short range.

JB out with a warm eastern winter and approx 75% of normal snowfall in the mid-atlantic region stretching up to PA southern tier on his first winter outlook today. Low expectations...I like it lol. So you can do with that info what you please. I will say the outlook is a little more on solid footing info-wise than "sheets of sleet".

I never did get to throw a response about the Mid-Atlantic folks saying where's the heat since we've been cranking through pages at a mid-winter pace this summer. Yea it has been a very hot summer in central PA. For me personally, there has definitely been summers with more blistering heat waves... but this has been one of the most consistently hot summers I can really think of. Humidity hasn't really been excessive this year, we've only had a few times where heat headlines were needed anywhere in the region. I think the combination of lack of excessive humidities and the overall dry ground conditions have contributed to the amount of 90º+ degree days seen in especially the Harrisburg/LSV area but regionwide as a whole. I really haven't focused on the Mid-Atlantic much, but it seems like it has been way wetter down there overall. Look at the last 90 days down there compared to PA. I know Isaias is a chunk of that, but there is still a significant + departure in that region. I would venture a guess that part of why they are saying where's the heat is because DC and surrounding counties are running a whopping 8-12" above normal since June 1st. That and Harrisburg's summer 2020 would probably be business as usual for a DC summer.

Boy some of this short/near term guidance tonight is suggesting a good portion of this rain event tomorrow is a turnpike and south affair, at best.

Doppler estimates are about an inch or so around here the last 24 hours, which seems reasonable I suppose (not including the line of storms Thursday). We've had several rounds of showers and downpours the last two days. We'll need a good bit more to improve the longer term deficit over the last couple months but this is def some significant short term relief. Its got most of the lawn heading back green.

Starting to lose some of the brighter stuff. In the thick of it here now and it's a nice moderate rain.

A washout this afternoon, and looking like a washout this evening as well. Wettest day all summer and it couldn't have come soon enough.

Better watch out, there's a historic river crest brewing on the west branch haha.

Wasn't too serious, pretty decent gust front before the rain really started and some half decent winds.. and a nice downpour for a change. Temps all the way back to 66. I think this was literally the first severe warned thunderstorm I've had all summer here.

Update: Holy F

Normally I'd look at a radar like this and think heh it looks pretty stormy later. After this summer I'm looking at it thinking "Wonder how it finds a way to miss us with a light shower at best". At any rate a new severe watch has been issued for most of the central from the Susquehanna westward.

The GFS/GEFS really doesn't have a lot of QPF either, it kinda loses the remnant low of Laura on the prog with the northern branch low showing. I've seen Laura's impact here as more of an influx of it's very humid tropical airmass and the potential for heavy downpours with thunderstorms that develop. It's not looking like any kind of significant intact area of heavy rain. The pressing frontal boundary is also going to draw up it's moisture as well but the focus on that has been more on western PA.

Most of PA is in a slight risk for severe weather today, with an enhanced risk in NE PA and a hatched wind threat area in neighboring NY/NJ/CT . The enhanced risk/hatched wind zone kind of shifted northeast a tad from when I saw it last night, so most of us in here are looking at a general slight risk day with ample CAPE. The better shearing is farther north in NE PA and above, where multiple thunderstorm modes (supercellular and bow segments) are in play and actually occurring already. We could see some pop ups and clusters this afternoon, and downdraft CAPES are quite high, so wind is probably the biggest threat in anything severe in our region. Edit: Mid level lapse rates are also somewhat elevated as well, so some bigger cells that pop up could have some decent hail too.

Cameron was starting to get storm surge flooding before dark yesterday prior to the primary bands of the hurricane even arriving there. I'd say NHC's wording was probably prudent there. Heck the Lake Charles NWS had evacuated handing over duties to Brownsville NWS during the storm. I can't really speak for the layout of things having never been down there, but it seems the hurricane came in a bit on the right side of the cone, landfalling directly on Cameron and going straight up getting Lake Charles into the northeast eyewall. It had been looking like the eye was going to go in near the border/Port Arthur, which would have sent a longer southerly fetch up that Calcasieu Lake into LC on the east side of the system. The eyewall came in at Cameron and went directly at LC, which the main storm surge push probably didn't have enough to get what 30 some miles up to Lake Charles without a longer term fetch piling water. That would be my speculation. That's a function of all that marshland in southern LA, it absorbs storm surge flooding. I'm actually pretty impressed that Lake Charles reported a 132mph wind gust and near 100mph sustained before the station went out, and they were still in the northeast eyewall at the time. The station just west of Cameron stayed online and got a 127mph gust. That's about it for ASOS quality stations in that immediate area where the eyewall tracked, so those are pretty impressive obs for the limited obs that are down there. Both the Lake Charles and Fort Polk radar all the way in central LA went out at basically the same time last night and are still offline. That's probably an indication of how much of LA doesn't have power. Lake Charles Calcasieu Pass (just west of Cameron)

Ugh it's not a good outlook for most of a lot of those communities. I hope the ones in Port Arthur, Lake Charles, and Nederland evacuated. The way this storm is moving at a half decent clip it's going to take hurricane force wind gusts way inland. Hurricane hunter's are finding pressures in the 930s now. Like I said in my last post, this is probably coming in peak intensity. It's sort of looking like the situation with Hurricane Michael back in 2018. As bad as this is going to be on the coast and well inland for those that get into the core of the storm, the fact this thing is going to split the uprights and landfall in a pretty rural stretch between Galveston/Houston and New Orleans is a miracle. Couldn't imagine this coming straight up Galveston Bay or into SE LA below NOLA.

Well Laura escalated quickly today, geesh. I'm not really surprised this ran up to a 4 as this is what organized hurricanes in the very warm Gulf do this time of the year when the surrounding conditions are conducive. It def has "the look" now with the symmetric central dense overcast and very well defined and equally symmetric eye. NHC notes in their disco possible increase of SW shear and maybe an eyewall replacement cycle right as it's coming in but there's not much time for either of those things to do much if it happens. It's moving at a steady pace. I think this thing's probably going to come in near peak intensity (within 10mph either side of its current 145 sustained). Could this crack a 5? Maybe an outside chance...although the pressure's a little high. 940s type pressure usually are suggestive of a cat 4 or even a high 3. It would probably have to really deepen a good bit more pressure wise down at least into the 920-930ish range. Either way this is going to have a tremendous storm surge into southern LA/extreme SE TX. The low lying marshland/bayous that make up the immediate several miles to the coastline are going be inundated easily and that's why NHC has very strong wording with the storm surge as it is going to penetrate miles inland from the actual coast. Where are some of the people you know located in that area?

Most model consensus has been focusing near that TX/LA border region for landfall, with the EC ensemble mean having been running uncomfortably close to the Galveston/Houston region. Looks like the 18z Euro ensemble cluster shifted east a bit from 12z, putting the mean near the border region. Galveston/Houston is probably going to get at least a piece of this hurricane but hopefully staying on the west side of the storm will mitigate storm surge issues some in that area. It seems Port Arthur is most under the gun attm in terms of any bigger town, but the storm making a landfall up that coastline toward the border would generally be a plus because there is not much at all on that stretch population wise and even that immediate corridor inland this storm is likely to take is pretty rural. What could be significantly impacted on that forecast track is oil infrastructure, especially with a major hurricane which is what Laura is likely to be at that stage. The new 18z Euro op has it coming in at 945mb.