MAG5035

Those models may have better at picking out the interaction with an abnormally strong jet referenced in the 5pm NHC discussion that's going to help rocket this thing up the coast likely mostly intact. 18z Euro 850 winds on the NE quad of the center have a max of 90-100mph all the way up through LI into SNE. The setup is going to allow the potential of the majority of that to be tapped on the east side. As I said earlier, if the core of the storm finds its way into some part of the Sus Valley.. it probably will come with a few hour period of higher winds that perhaps top TS force. As it looks now I think most of this potential just misses the LSV and catches SE PA. This storm is likely strengthening at the last moment bc the shear that has been a detriment pretty much the whole time has weakened, as noted in the update disco from NHC. On a related note.. a lot of non-tractor trailer traffic I saw on I-80 today was in the form of bucket trucks of various utility contractors heading east.

The torch has been passed over this way for the Tamaqua split haha.

Haha real good time for the CCX Radar to go down.

I generally agree. It's hard to tap what is usually high winds aloft on the west side in this type of landfalling setup. Traditionally you would need the center going in west and getting into the more banded eastern side that has the full southerly/southeasterly tap of the jet bringing it northward. However, the actual core of this system is expected to hold together very well as it's drawn more rapidly northward after landfall, and one that stays fairly intact can deliver some decent winds. If the core ventures it's way west enough to fly through a bigger portion of the LSV tomorrow, there could be a few hour period that sees at least some TS force gusts with the passage of it. Or what at your house would probably be referred to as a light breeze. This was in the NHC discussion, although yea that would apply more for the immediate coast.

Lol since we're into winter references, this is like watching the Sus Valley locked in for a sure 18-24" while hoping I scrape together enough to verify an advisory. If that early stuff ends up all east of here I might end up being pretty well cooked for seeing much of anything out of this whole event.

Adding in this afternoon's WPC QPF graphic for comparison.

I definitely don't think you or Cashtown are going to miss out on this. The primary issue is starting to settle on position of the heavy rainfall axis as well as overall extent into central PA as models are starting to dial in the track for the most part. The whole Sus Valley should be pretty well into this for a solid rainfall. The only question there for me is how much of the actual core of the center gets into SC/SE PA, that's going to determine how far back those excessive 2-4+ totals get. The central counties where I'm at that encompass the JST/AOO/UNV corridor are going to depend on early development of deform precip as the system interacts with the pressing front. 12z Euro has this and thus gets this area into some solid but not overly excessive rainfall while at the same time having a really tight area of excessive rains, maybe catching Philly at best. GFS/GEFS is tighter with getting stuff back into the central counties, but more expansive with the excessive rainfall into SE PA east of the river in the case of the new 18z GFS. Falls off very rapidly west of the river with the main push. 12z Euro op had more of an expansive preceding precip shield. Early look at the 3k NAM gets the shield back to JST/AOO/UNV. Setting the farther west boundaries of the QPF axis are Canadian and SREF ensembles, aiming the axis more squarely at MDT and having much heavier rainfall back into the central. A look at all the major ensemble means show the biggest bust potential will be in the true central. For the record, I'm leaning the Euro look right now. These are 24hr precipitation total means. GEFS EURO EPS

Man if this coming winter presents even half the missed precip opportunities this summer has had around here I might end up in the Panic Room before February lol.

I'd be willing to bet Isaias will not be a hurricane at the 5pm advisory as it certainly doesn't look like one currently. Satellite presentation is a mess this afternoon with warming convective tops pretty much routed off the center of circulation, which can be clearly seen emerging North Andros Island on the visible. It's very hard to make heads or tails of anything on the infrared imagery. This is definitely not a hurricane right now.

Looking at ensemble guidance, the 18z GEFS and 12z Euro EPS are in fairly good agreement with swath of heavier precip probs (an inch or greater in this example) with GEFS perhaps a tad east of the Euro.

Yea lol, I was being semi-sarcastic. I do have some parts that are completely roasted but a good part of the yard is still salvageable. It just needs to rain like now.

Yea its hard to believe we're already up to "i" on the hurricane name list although we wasted the first several on minimal tropical storms that were of minor consequence or a non-factor. I've always compared recent active seasons to the ones of the pre-satellite era with a grain of salt. The 1933 season is still second behind 2005 with most named storms (20), and that was well before satellite and aircraft recon. Imagine how many more named storms there could have been if the technology to name any warm cored and/or subtropical swirl in the Atlantic Basin was available. At any rate, before Hurricane Hanna and Douglas in the Pac that just missed Hawaii last week, all the tropical basins had been extremely quiet and below average when it comes to ACE (accumulated cyclone energy). The screen shot table below shows the tropical activity in each sector vs climo (in parentheses). Both Pacific Basins are notably behind where they normally are, especially the NW Pac. The Hemisphere as a whole is below normal right now for tropical activity. The Atlantic Basin will probably be picking up some of that slack the next couple weeks. http://tropical.atmos.colostate.edu/Realtime/

Yea lol, I actually never added in the few tenths I got during our wintry first 2 weeks of May, so it's more like a rip roaring 16.5" for the season. The real bad part about that is that those two season in the 50s are generally an average winter at this location. A normal garbage winter would be a notable improvement over what transpired here last winter. All the very worst ones in the last 20-25 years or so had at least one event that had a warning snow, or at the worst a few solid advisory events. Never measured anything much more than 2" on anything last year.

I'd end up with brown grass that's not crispy when you walk on it.

Yea the 6z Euro (and now 12z Euro coming in) was into the Fl peninsula as well and the 6z Euro ensemble low clusters was dead center into FL as well. Track is def not set in stone.. it could certainly end up traversing west more before turning. Conceivably it could even end up in the eastern Gulf, which would really ramp up the regionwide rainfall chances here when it gets picked up. The storm is approaching pretty low latitude wise, impacting the Turks and Caicos and looking like it's aiming more toward the southern Bahamas. It's also moving at a fairly modest 16mph pace. If the storm does go up just east of Florida, that's probably going to set the trajectory for potential direct impacts around here to be east of the Sus River. Directly getting dragged through the FL peninsula is a bit tricky. There's not too much precedent for that track. A somewhat close recent example was Hurricane Irma in 2017 but that came up the western Fl coast and that was a different animal altogether... being a long tracked cape verde Hurricane that peaked before approaching Florida. Personally I think there's a better chance the storm gets on the left side of Fl than impacting into southern FL and curving inland through the whole peninsula. NHC will probably still favor the east of Florida track for now, but there are signs in the models that this cone might have to come west. Like I mentioned the best chance of this system becoming more of a regionwide thing here is if it got under or through Florida into the far eastern Gulf and then picked up. The setup is not such for a NC/SC bound tropical system to track directly through the area. That typically requires downstream blocking to the north/northeast to force the track N or NW into our area.. which we don't have. The influencing trough in the Great Lakes/Oh Valley region will def turn this out, just of matter of how far west the Hurricane can get first. What I think could be being under modeled at the moment is potential precip coming from Isaias interacting with the approaching trough. That type of stuff probably won't be resolved well until the short term guidance can get it's hands on it. There remains pretty big timing differences between the Euro and GFS, with the GFS being way faster. The GFS op really isn't the best for resolving tropical systems to begin with. At any rate, the 12z Euro has the center in the Chesapeake at 108 while the GFS has it out of the US. I lean slower but probably not as quite as slow as the Euro.

Looks like a pretty decent slug of rain and imbedded storms setting up for the LSV later on roughly from the turnpike south, while diurnal convection fires in NW and northern PA. The D1 beat continues to live on here it would appear... as AOO-UNV looks like they're going to miss yet another widespread rain opportunity tonight. CTP shared these a little bit ago. Barely 0.5-1.5" of rain in the last 30 days right square in the middle of PA. I'd be curious what a 60 day looks like, cuz most of June was just about as dry here. TS Isaias will definitely need to be watched closely for the eastern seaboard as we get into early next week. 12z Euro is much slower/somewhat NW than the 12z GFS (imagine that). Ensemble guidance from both the Euro and GFS seemed to indicate the eastern half of PA could be in line for effects from the western side of the system as the center comes up and curves NE. Heavy rain (and not necessarily a lot of wind) running up through especially from the Sus River eastward in PA is pretty standard boilerplate for a curving tropical system that essentially runs up or just off the coast. Timing of the system and the approaching trough that will eventually curve the storm up will certainly ensure plenty of uncertainty on forecast track for the next few days. Not to mention the storm is currently tangled up in Hispaniola which could pose even more timing/track issues as the storm is trying to redevelop it's center and move generally toward the Bahamas.

Widespread storms in western PA, wonder which way they'll eventually miss me tonight.

Yea that general area has caught a few heavy rain episodes the last couple weeks. Doppler estimates of over 4 inches this evening have the bullseye just west of Johnstown in what is fortunately a pretty rural area in far SW Westmoreland between Johnstown, New Florence, and Ligonier. Although there have still been significant estimates in the first two of those towns. Its raining some now, and the radar suddenly looks quite active west/northwest of here. Fair amount of thunder and lightning with the stuff near and overhead now so could be noisy if the other stuff makes it here.

On the north side of town of course. I've had a few doses of rain the last couple days but definitely not enough. And of course same deal tonight with the real heavy stuff just south of town. Hopefully some of it bubbles up this way. On that note I'm getting rather concerned about the training going on in the southern half of Cambria (Johnstown and surrounding communities). Already flash flood warnings out and 2"+ on the doppler estimates.

Has anyone seen the comet yet? I managed to get a pic of it Friday night from here at home. Not the greatest with an older digital camera and no tripod but still pretty cool.

Meanwhile I just noticed Tamaqua has incoming, again lol @Voyager.

I'm pretty much within the edge of the D1 zone now. Doesn't look like tonight's action is getting here either, with a split in the thunderstorm activity poised to go north and southwest of here. On the drought monitor's national map, the area of drought conditions in PA is labeled as a short term drought.. which would indicate despite it being very dry in a lot of the area that the drought hasn't progressed to one that has adversely affected the water table, reservoirs, etc.

Unfortunately overall it looks like we will remain in this type of regime for perhaps most of the rest of the month. It won't be wall to wall max heat but the periods within the next 8-14 days that are "cooler" are still likely to be at least somewhat above average.. which is still hot this time of the year as we're pretty much within our hottest portion of the year the next 3-4 weeks. We've been due for that wall to wall hot and dry summer July/August, although I guess some folks east of the Susquehanna haven't been all that dry lately. As for today, saw that CXY and MDT are back up to 99ºF again after falling to 97 briefly. Two weather stations on mesowest up over 100ºF (101 near Shippensburg and 100 near the MD line south of Gettysburg). Mid to upper 90s are pretty common today in the south central, especially near and west of the Susquehanna and even back here to the eastern Allegheny front where 94-95ºF readings look pretty common. Thunderstorms have fired off of Erie a few hours early by the looks of short term guidance, esp the 3k NAM.. which could allow whatever organized line that materializes out of OH to press further into the central counties early this evening.

I actually got a half decent downpour in the middle of the afternoon, probably a couple tenths out of it. Gotta start somewhere I guess lol.

Looks like the direction of the day for the rain to miss here today is north haha. It did rain a little bit last night, but what was left of what really looked like a promising area of downpours probably put down 0.05-0.1" tops.