MAG5035

Have had some light rain/drizzle this eve with temps hovering around 32-33ºF. Most everything is wet but the car, the steps to the door, and the deck are a solid glaze.

Maybe the 3 counties (Harrisburg area) above the non advised counties in the LSV but I doubt it. Any trace of ice constitutes a winter weather advisory and everyone's dewpoints are still in the 20s. They're probably going to ride on it till after precip arrives and go from there.

I do see what JB is saying wrt to the overall pattern in 93-94 vs this Feb. There was generally a -EPO on that period (much more negative EPO period late Jan of 94) along with a -PNA, which we are running currently and a somewhat +NAO and -AO. The NAO that winter didn't really have any periods of significant + or -. So I can see what he's saying with regards to a gradient type pattern, which we can score something from... but I certainly disagree on the potential to even come close to that winter. The dominant +NAO/AO is really hurting, especially combined with the -PNA in this case. So we get a decent EPO ridge in the progs.. but have a western trough (-PNA). That dumps cold to the west, which would be okay in a more neutral NAO/AO regime that allows the cold to spread east and southeast... but I just feel it is too much in the current predicament. You see this in the model forecasts where yea there has been good runs from time to time with plenty of snow.. but much more often it's runs of storm after storm after storm of p-type issues at best and cutters at worst. If we did get the snow over the weekend, it's likely going to be gone by early next week as heights quickly recover ahead of the next system. This winter has had all the hallmarks of a clunker, and we're getting to the point of the season where we need nothing short of a stunning reversal. I'm not ready for the Panic Room by any means, but I'm not particularly optimistic either right now. If we're playing the compare to legendary winters game, I feel 92-93 is a better fit. Aside from the prolific interior PA snowstorm in Dec '92, winter didn't show up again very much until later in February (very mild January) when we went on a run. But again, that Dec nor'easter and the March '93 superstorm were extreme anomalies within a winter that was generally mild. I just can't compare to 93-94 haha.. that one was wall to wall January into early March. UNV had 30"+ THREE MONTHS in a row (JFM), one of the worst if not the worst cold outbreaks ever in January (-18ºF at PSU with a -36ºF recorded SW of State College one of the mornings) and capped off by a nearly 30" snowstorm in early March. Just an incredible winter, this year we can hardly stay below 32ºF for a high lol.

Surprised no-one brought up the 3k NAM in here, that actually put a stripe of snows through the Sus Valley with the last low on Friday.. which by way is looking like quite a deep low. Could be one of the strongest coastal lows of the season if not the strongest. I don't know if a changeover gets to the Sus Valley in time but the Laurel's and north central are certainly well in play for seeing something and potentially parts of western and central as well as that seems to more of the focus of the Euro/GFS/Canadian (esp western PA). Gonna depend on how rapidly the low deepens and how far inland it tracks. Most guidance seems to have it too far inside for the Sus Valley attm. At any rate, given the disappearance of this weekend wave...this Friday thing might be the best opportunity for snow in the short-medium range.

I saw NWS Pittsburgh post this graphic the other day and couldn't help but share it in here. I can only hope this century's 20's decade does better for Pittsburgh than the original roaring 20s. In fact, that period from 1919-1935 accounted for 1/3 (11 winters) of the 33 winters since 1880 that started at or less than this season's 12.7" to date. There's a few half decent comebacks in there but that's pretty rough.

I've been pretty busy the last couple days, I'll be able to update on things a bit more later on this eve. For the Friday potential there's still some support for a potential changeover in the central counties that still needs resolved. There's a lot of low pressure waves running this boundary and I think the last one Friday can happen if the frontal boundary is able to progress eastward enough. The NAM seems to be the only operational guidance showing much with that (back in the JST-AOO-UNV-IPT corridor), with the 12z GEFS showing a stripe of snowfall over that and more of C-PA into the Sus Valley. GEFS is probably too optimistic on cold pressing in that well, but a NAM type solution can't be discounted. For this wave over the weekend, I'll be interested to see how the thermal boundary recovers behind all the late week storminess. 12z Euro and ensembles have a WV/MD/NOVA/DC focus with this wave today. Still okay for the south central and southern tier of PA. GFS has it more in PA but not as robust. I think this will be a viable threat once we get closer into range but I'd be really surprised if this took a bigger swing south of us than over us. We haven't been able to keep a northern branch low under us all year.

Yea, the only teleconnection going for us right now in the longer range is EPO being progged to flip negative to some degree. That would generally be a good development for the eastern US in terms of winter as the negative phase (ridging into AK) typically will shut off zonal flow directly from the Pac and allow cold air to intrude into the US from western Canada. With a continued -PNA and a hyper positive NAO/AO progged, that would definitely suggest that we're going to continue to deal with limited press south of cold air and issues with storm track being too far north or northwest. The EPO is a significant driver, but I dunno if it's going to overcome such a strong state of the NAO/AO if that came to fruition. The Euro and it's ensembles was the guidance with off the charts + but all other models and ensembles still had a significant positive state progged. Some stuff is starting to take MJO back out into phase 4-5 too as well. We're going to need to see some improvement in these indexes going forward for sure. With that said, one has to realize looking at those teleconnection forecasts that the dominant +NAO/AO sets in mainly AFTER this coming week, where it is looking like we're going to be dealing with P-type issues at various times in some or all of C-PA as well the potential for a lot of precip between these different waves set to run along the boundary.

Lol.. if PETA had their way we could have just plugged animatronic Phil into some teleconnection indices to come to that conclusion, yikes.

WAA band ended up being a 1.0" fluff bomb this morning. That band must have had good lift in the zone snow growth wise, as snow itself appeared to be aggregated dendrites. Already starting to melt as the marginal surface temps are making this look like something you'd see on April 2 vs Feb 2. 1.2" total on the day, which finally gets me over the 10" mark on the season. 40" to go to get to average lol.

That heavy band of WAA snow is definitely a crush job albeit a brief one. A bit over a half inch of large aggregates and some caved roads.

Snowing pretty decently currently, although with surface temps above freezing it isn’t doing much on the ground at this elevation attm . Radar showing a heavy burst incoming so I’m sure something will stick. Had 0.2” overnight.

Yea it is snowing here with a light dusting on the ground and some heavier stuff about to move through. I'm sure something will survive over the mountains, and there might be some warm advection precip generated overnight into tomorrow before the warmer air moves in later tomorrow. This stuff moving through now might get eaten up off the mountains though.

I'm taking a 9.6" total for the winter into February with the largest snowfall being 2.1". Going back to 2000, the only worse start to date was 06-07. Other horrendous winters of note in that time frame.. 01-02, 11-12, and 15-16 all had January warning level snowfall events here.. with 01-02 and 15-16 having double digit ones. Pretty special level of bad so far lol.

12z Euro had a boatload of freezing rain with that second(ish) wave of low pressure late week and even some frozen at the end of the first wave and the start of the second. A press of cold air is becoming evident with a high sliding to the north on the models mid-week. How much of a press of cold will obviously determine what kind of p-type issues we have along with the track of the second low pressure wave, which would appear to be the primary event for widespread winter weather potential. 12z GFS relatively on it's own so far for the 12z model cycle tracking the low up the coast, as ensemble guidance seems to be currently more supportive of the low track the Euro and Canadian take with this. All have varying degrees of mixing. I know the Euro has shown what the 12z GFS has in a couple previous runs the last few days. A more progressive solution in a progressive themed winter certainly isn't out of the realm of possibility, and that would help us in that scenario. There's going to be a lot to resolve the next few days.

I was pretty busy yesterday and this morning and am now starting to look into things again going forward and man was I having trouble finding something positive today. The renewed +AO surge had a lot of spread in the guidance the other day but looking at it today shows a pronounced return to the magnitude we saw in the first half of January, along with a surge back to a more solidly +NAO. Don't have to go much further into it to point out how the longer range of the models have responded to that, taking away what had been looking to be finally a more sustained period of cold weather. It's not that the cold isn't around.. it just isn't able to stick for more than a couple days at any kind of significant (-) anomaly... and it also makes us vulnerable to a high northern branch and/or cutter regime, depending on how much the PNA/EPO screws us up too. Certainly looking like a lot more of a challenge to go on a run of winter weather one could deem a "comeback". With all that said, next week does bare some watching. There's going to be a clash of temps on the frontal boundary and what appears to be a couple different waves to potentially run it. Not far off from a wintry mix/ice scenario with the first wave of precip mid week as cold temps bleed back down south at the surface with a somewhat modest high crossing north. Some guidance gets the mix into portions of C-PA. Then there's a second wave late week that runs up. GFS/Canadian run it up west of the mountains and the new Euro runs it up the coast, providing a swath of snow up through the middle of the state. So we'll have to watch how that evolves over the weekend and while we enjoy the run of warmth early next week. Sus Valley looks good for at least a couple days of 55-60, but far southern could certainly do better. I don't think we're going to see an all out heat wave, but all of us should see 50s and up for 2-3 days. Sidenote: I've finally decided to give WeatherBell a try as I've wanted access to its better and more extensive ensemble products among other things, instead of say waiting to see someone post ensemble maps (usually in the Mid-Atl with the DC centered map) for instance. So I'm armed with all that now.

We'll have your name changed to "itssnowingtime" by the end of the month.

Yea we’re due for a new thread anyways, we did get a whole month out of this one.

The Great Lakes are pretty much wide open too. Ice coverage is at a measly 5.6%, which isn't completely unheard of this time of the year but certainly a strong indicator that this winter has had a lack of any sustained cold in the Eastern US and Great Lakes Region. If we do eventually see an actual dead of winter grade cold shot sometime next month there is going to be some major lake snows for folks underneath the favored flow off the lakes.

That's what something like this will get you. And that chart was just high temperatures too, I'd like to see what the low temperatures looked like.. especially during the warm spell.

Not sure if your lumping in the Mid-Atlantic folks but there hasn't been anyone in this subforum that has called this event DOA, including myself who's been pretty pessimistic on this storm threat the last couple days. I'm not going to sugarcoat a setup that doesn't look that ideal, but I'm also not ruling out seeing enough of a tug north to get something into the southern parts of the area. The northern branch wave progged behind the departing coastal may also deliver light snows, something I mentioned on Monday. The Euro has been a bit more amplified with that feature and the 0z threw a large swath of 1-2" across PA from that.

Still too much progression and positive tilted alignment for my liking with this upcoming storm. The western ridge is pressed east/flattened and it limits the northern branch's ability to dig down and pull this up in time. GFS/Euro bury a lot of energy into Mexico, while the 12z Canadian didn't and offered the most coherent attempt at some interaction..thus being the closest of the bunch at 12z. CTP had a decent discussion about this in their long term this morning.

Well the first step to any snowy pattern is getting the daily 6z GFS ice age run.

Lol I wish it was that easy.

I think the coastal is going to happen but as I posted last night I don't like the pattern alignment and the lesser amount of amplification that's being advertised now with regards to getting whatever magnitude of coastal storm close enough to us. There is some hints of some northern branch energy dropping down enough for perhaps lighter snows behind the exiting coastal and before heights rebound for what looks like a more above average few day period getting into the 1st week of Feb. Something like that might favor the western part of the state though. I wouldn't write off February, especially after the first week. The long range has been really building a major ridge in the NAO realm as well as finally driving some + heights over the pole (improving AO) and improving the Pac/west coast some. I'm certainly aware of the "always 10-15 days away" theme this winter but the more wholesale change to a colder regime in the east had been also advertised by some of the longer range stuff like the Euro weeklies and CFS as well. We can still flip things around and there's been worse first halves of winter. 2006-2007 was pretty much dead on arrival til about the week of the V-day '07 storm. I think LSV places like York and Lancaster didn't even record measurable snowfall til like the first week of Feb that winter. At any rate we have to relax the AO if we're going to get a colder regime that actually sticks for more than a couple days. I think the very positive AO regime that developed at the end of Dec and lasted all this month has had the biggest overall influence on our sensible weather here. We can do okay with snow and cold in this region without the negative NAO but the +AO, especially at the magnitude it had been at, is hard to deal with. The strong PV over the pole locks up the arctic air, making cold air intrusions quick and also really raising the latitude of the northern branch. We haven't had a single clipper this year drop down anywhere near our latitude. I feel it's rearing it's ugly head again this week to a degree with the northern branch not amplifying enough to pick up the southern wave.. although the +EPO is also a detriment keeping things progressive and the source region of air Pacific. That PennLive article actually had a couple decent sources, referencing Judah Cohen at AER. He provides a weekly update and discussion on the state of the polar vortex and the AO HERE. The last discussion was Jan 20th, so an update is probably due today or tomorrow.

Today's 12z Euro pretty much kept the northern and southern stream shortwaves separate, while the GFS is more amplified and interacts the two streams.. drawing more of an event toward the Northeast US. On the 18z GFS the interaction does generate an area of lighter snows crossing the state despite a weaker, more progressive coastal that's tracking a bit east of ideal for our area. Neither seem as amplified as a couple days ago when they were running significant lows right up the eastern seaboard. The overall 500mb alignment of the western ridge/downstream trough looks very positively oriented. Thus, I'm not particularly enthused with this becoming a big coastal (or developing into one in time for us) at the moment. With that said...there's definitely plenty of time as we have all week to see how things change, and there isn't much agreement or continuity on the models right now.