MAG5035

I think it's just the timing of the dry weather kick starting the process in some of the earlier turning trees, which has now lasted into the late summer pretty close to when things traditionally start turning. Like I said before, the majority of trees are still green.. but some areas you can see the scattered colors. I snagged a pic of this on the back road a few miles away.

Same here haha, just a light shower this afternoon. The local storms did the ole Tamaqua Split™ and left me with yet another day of misses. Most of the action seemed to drop through western PA. Hope you have a speedy recovery from your surgery.

We wouldn't necessarily need the center of the remnant low to move through PA to see an enhanced rain potential given the approaching shortwave and trough, nor would we need a full phase or anything like that. Timing of features is fairly important as usual. If the trough progresses faster, that could cut off Laura's moisture from coming up here. Otherwise, aside from any possible direct impacts from the remnants, just drawing up the moisture laden airmass that accompanies a tropical system via southern and SW flow (from a probable landfall in the western/central Gulf coast in this case) charges up the PWAT's and you can have a heavy rain threat just from that from thunderstorm development in that airmass. A look at EC ensemble guidance this afternoon indicated pretty high PWAT's (generally 1.5-1.75") early in the weekend, which is around the time we would see anything. Here's the EC ensemble map of PWAT percent anomalies, most of PA about 160% of normal in this timeframe. That tropical airmass would also accompanied by yet another above normal regime temp wise ahead of that trough late week into the weekend. So I can already see where we could have thunderstorms develop with torrential downpours without the actual tropical system directly impacting PA. If these features time well, it could draw the remnants up and the approaching front could enhance an actual slug of organized precip.. which would be more beneficial in terms of regionwide relief from developing drought conditions. Much will probably change around this week. Laura definitely has a good shot at being a major hurricane and the main focus is where on the Gulf coast that is going to be. Most guidance has centered in that region of the TX/LA border. The 12z Euro ensemble mean was notably more west, focusing near the Galveston/Houston region.

Pretty much a dry day here today for the most part unless some of the remaining storms in western PA find their way here (doubtful). I'd say a rough guesstimate was about a half inch of rain yesterday, so hopefully can score some more tomorrow. One other observation lately around here has been the "fall" foliage. Obviously, the drought conditions have been a pretty big catalyst but there's a lot of trees with leaves turning colors. And some are turning to reds and oranges as well. Most of the tree foliage is still green of course, but it's noticeable. I've seen mid-late September foliage less further along than what we have currently... and it isn't even September yet.

The absolute shut out in precip the last couple weeks has come to a merciful end this afternoon with a couple moderate showers already and some heavier storms that look like they're about to impact here.

Regarding the tropical action, it seems like modeling is suggesting that TS Laura eventually gets picked up in a wide arc and could introduce a period of wet weather or perhaps even a more full fledged rain event. The tracks are all over the place though, GFS takes it in near the TX/LA border and arcs up the Mississippi Valley and around though PA. Euro landfalls further east in southern LA and lifts and arcs harder taking most precip under PA and Canadian is further east yet on landfall but gets precip into southern PA on the arc. This is merely observation on modeling and definitely not a high confidence thing. All modeling doesn't do much with Marco, which is actually the front running tropical system. Even the tropical models darn near fizzle the thing before it even makes landfall. I'm not particularly impressed with it at the moment, it's had some decent convection bursts but it looks like its starting to get elongated from shear. Personally don't think this comes in as a hurricane but in the Gulf things can turn in a hurry if a window of more favorable conditions presents itself. But it's forecast into a more hostile environment as it nears the coast. It doesn't look like we get too much moisture drawn up prior to the early week frontal passage, which looks like it will shut off that possibility. Laura has more of a chance to eventually have an influence. It has to get through Cuba first though... And its taking a lousy track that's going to stunt it's development probably for at least another 24hrs. It seems more well developed overall with less shearing influences and a more robust looking circulation. If it can hang on getting into the Gulf, this one will likely be a more formidable Gulf coast threat.

I swear I saw this exact map about this time last year lol. Yup.. we got the worst of winter alright.

It looks like the Atlantic Basin has a good chance lighting back up the next couple weeks. We are approaching the traditional peak of tropical season (approx Sept 10) for one, and we could be eventually swinging the MJO into phases that correspond with enhanced Atlantic Basin activity, which is the 1-3 realm, but esp 2 and 3.

The drought monitor only goes back to 2000 I believe. This drought is definitely getting pretty severe in the short term sense when it comes to vegetation and stream levels, but we're not in a long term one yet that really gets into stuff like groundwater/reservoir issues yet. A reversal of the dry pattern for a few weeks (or a tropical system strike over the whole area) would probably shore up a lot of the issues. If this general pattern remains into the fall and early winter than we could be dealing with a more long term drought. Most of the main river/stream gauges have top 5 low water records to go with their top crests. There's a couple gauges where their current level would be about 4th-5th on the top 5 but most of them aren't that low yet for a top (or I guess bottom) 5. The 1960s decade seems to have a lot of low water records over several waterways. It seems like that was a decade that had a good bit of drought.

I was sent this pic of the West Branch just outside of Renovo over in western Clinton the other day. I guess that's what a -0.42' stage looks like lol.

Haha yea I'm just trying to get some water on the lawn in a couple places at time. I have a pretty big yard and I'm trying not to rack up the water bill too much haha. It was pretty well established so I'm hoping it's dormant and not completely roasted. Guess I'll find out.

Yea I definitely don't doubt there's more localized parts of the area that have been a lot worse off, and the center of the widespread drought conditions have been persisting right in the middle of the state. I knew you were down there west of Cashtown, there's just not a lot of official climate sites. I take your word for it, I mean I'm in the same boat haha but I dunno if I got a double digit deficit. If I were to make an educated guess based off of KAOO"s climate numbers which is 20 miles south of here, I'd say we're probably 6-8" off May/June/July. I need to get a weather station rigged up at my place so I can start keeping track of this stuff more accurately here. I was actually surprised to see MDT wasn't that far off average wise, although it looked like they were about 4-5" off until the first week of August with the hurricane and thunderstorms.

100% chance of precip here tonight, plus some early fall foliage lol.

Which climate station has a double digit deficit over 3 months? Any departure like that in this region is pretty severe. That would be like literally having no precipitation for 90 days for most areas in this region. I know MDT has been pretty dry but certainly not to that degree. The precip departure in the monthly climate summaries from May/June/July were -1.90"/+0.21/-3.26". So that's pretty sizable (especially July) but not double digits. That's also not including Hurricane Isaias and those couple wet days either side the first week of August which has MDT at 3.45" for the current month (already running slightly above August's 3.2" average). That puts MDT departures at -1.39" since June 1st and -0.01" since January 1st. Likely why the drought monitor's D0 zone barely gets to the river in the Sus Valley. Those are pretty ordinary numbers.

If you click that graph on the bottom it'll actually change the map to what it looked like down to the week. Most of the Sus Valley (and no one east of the river) currently isn't even in D0, if you really want dry click around Mid-March 2002, a good portion of the lower Sus Valley was red (extreme D3). Guess I never realized how dry that non-winter was in 2001-2002. As dry as it's been for well.. most in here, we're still in what would be considered a short term drought.

The major theme last winter was certainly not a lack of opportunities, as it was fairly active storm wise. It was a major persistence in the storm track going north/northwest of PA as we came into the short term and then the reality of the event itself. Was sort of why models like the GFS gave us practically a 150% of normal snow season in digital snow in it's mid range. The big problem was the overall pattern vs what the mid term models were trying to do when they did try to give us an event far enough south for a snow event. Going practically the whole JFM period with a hyper +AO and an unfavorable West/Pacific was just a major detriment for our region to track a low south of the mason-dixon OR score notable frozen on events that put a primary west of PA due to a lack of arctic air availability via CAD. I don't really recall the NAM being notably horrendous last winter. It's better with mesoscale features but one has to be mindful that it can be a bit, overzealous at times with it's output on said mesoscale features. A lot of the heartbreak happened before we really got into NAM range as mentioned above. We go through rough patches in any winter whether it's a good or bad one overall. Last winter was that one that just was a wall to wall disaster for this region. Once you got to about the US 6 corridor in northern PA and up into interior NY State it was a different story. Ugh, been trying to forget last winter lol. If anyone's actually wandering what I'm thinking about this coming winter attm since I'm on the topic, well.. I'm approaching it with cautious pessimism right now. I'm seeing some potential La-Nina influences that may come into play as we've been running cool in the ENSO region this summer (especially in 1+2 and 3). It's still considered "neutral" right now in official terms using the 3 month average but SST anomalies in the whole ENSO region overall have def cooled some the last couple weeks. CPC has been putting a 50-55% likelihood of a Nina developing this fall into the winter. I think it would be a reasonable bet to say we're heading toward a winter that's a cold neutral or weak La-Nina. Personally, I'm more concerned about precipitation than temps. A more traditional nina-type winter setup is more dominant northern branch and not much southern branch action. Northern branch stuff that produce a lot of our lighter, advisory type snows was practically non-existent last winter, so I think that could be a net positive compared to last winter. I think the cold will be there, at least more often than last winter. Having such a persistent +AO regime return once again for a second winter in a row is very unlikely. What happens with the northern Pac and the MJO will have also have a major say in things. Having an actual wintry period in December has been somewhat of a lost art form in our region the last few years, so I'd say we're due for that. Ninas can be early starters if we in fact have one late in the fall. Just some way too early thoughts, the heat and the daily precip misses are getting old.

Torture

Probably another 7+ days of dry weather if that rain doesn't manage to get here today/tonight. No pressure or anything lol

The areal precip would be each county-wide average that is likely derived from their products/maps that estimate precip. So while the overall average on a county is a certain number, there can be portions of that county that actually saw less or more than that number. Centre county has been well, dead center in the driest conditions all summer so definitely no surprise that county is running significantly below average. In this county (Blair) I can pretty much assure you I've seen nowhere near the 3.7" of precip in the last 60 days in my neighborhood.

CTP posted pretty much that kind of an anomaly map yesterday for the 6-10 day. Looking like a frontal passage at the beginning of next week will send a cooler regime into PA for a good part of next week. They also just posted this one not too long ago.

Lol, probably accurate. And while I wasn't home to see it today, we finally did have a round of thunderstorms come through. It was enough to get a touch of green back into the lawns in the neighborhood for now.

I was just about to say there looks like some pretty feisty storms in and around Harrisburg.

Actually the latest stage at Williamsport for the west branch of the Susquehanna is a straight 0 ft now haha. Further upstream the gauge at Renovo is reading below zero (-0.2ft), which simply means the river level is below what the gauge station's elevation for 0ft is. Either way, that is really low. Speaking of which, here's a picture of this crick from the Hyner Lookout near Renovo I took in 2015. I think that lookout is something like 1300' in elevation above the river. I haven't been up that way in awhile.

What an awesome visible loop of the progression of this storm today. It probably had a quicker trip up I-95 than any beach traveler has on the weekend. https://weather.cod.edu/satrad/?parms=regional-eastcoast-truecolor-200-1-50-1&checked=map-glm_flash&colorbar=undefined

Hi guys, I hear it rained in some parts of the state today It took all day but I’m finally getting some pity rain that may keep some of my lawn on life support.