MAG5035

Guys, I have grass... and somehow it's still fairly green haha.

Hmm I didn't know he went over to that forum. He lives about 20 miles up I-99 from me.

There was a lesser known storm March 3-4th, 1999 that did something similar in this area. A deepening low that traversed into VA before exploding and moving from DC over eastern PA into upstate NY. The first half of it was a heavy rainstorm that transitioned to snow in the late evening and I remember being woke up in the middle of the night to howling wind and thundersnow. We then lost power for the rest of the night into most of the morning. Was a 6-8hr period of whiteout conditions. Pretty much the windstorm of a couple weeks ago plus 4-6 inches of snow (Laurel's up into western NY had much more. That's the most vivd example of legitimate blizzard conditions I can ever remember since I was only 7 for the 93 storm. Hard to find stuff on this event, I guess maybe that old easternwx archive that's been shared in here today might have something.

That whole part of north Texas has a high wind warning for 45-60mph and gusts to 80.

Today's big bad "Bomb" Cyclone. I'm pretty sure those wind gusts are in knots. Amarillo, TX gusting to 72mph. Should add that it's 26 years to the day and 1700miles to the west of the 93 superstorm haha.

I'm not responding to getting <2" while the entire Mid-Atl/NE I-95 sees 12-24+ hahaha. If I'm not mistaken, that Euro control run looked like a triple phase. The Euro op was heading for a phase but was missing the vort dropping straight out of the Hudson Bay the control had that just made that thing go bananas on that particular model. All models have the huge ridge out west, although progged a bit east for my liking when talking ideal trough alignment to track a prospective east coast storm that slams C-PA. Still way out in range, I see the rumblings with the occasional model run having a big storm but nothing definitive enough to jump on yet.

Nearly a month, since Feb 12th. Prior to that I had a run with snow on the ground from Jan 9th til later in the first week of February and about 4-5 days with the November snowstorm. Obviously the high amount of sleet in the numerous mixing events this winter was a factor but it's been a pretty good run with the snowpack retention this winter here. Most of the yard is still covered but both neighboring yards to mine are not.

Full meltdown here today. The very gusty downsloping winds and March sun were enough to get temps in the 50s and as a result we've lost way more remaining snow than yesterday. I think most of the yard will be making a reappearance by the end of the week.

Saw NWS Pittsburgh put this on their facebook. It looks relatively accurate for the region with Harrisburg riding just inside that 36-48". There's even a tiny red dot just about where Cashtown is haha. It checks out here as I have 51.2" for the season (right within my average range). I had 54.6" last winter, but it took the 13.5" March 21-22 storm and the 4.7" April 2 storm to bust into the average range. I don't know if we'll have quite the prolific late March/early April stretch we had last year but it should be fresh in our minds that it can happen with the right setup. I personally hope after our potential period (week after this one) that we bust out of it with April rolling in.

I went up to Blue Knob yesterday afternoon to take advantage of really good slopes. You’d be hard pressed to find a PA location that has deeper winter than them up there at 3000ft after this week. Probably at least a 12-18” pack.

I'd bet on the cooler outcome for this particular system on Sunday. The southern LSV turnpike and south may make a pretty good run into the 50s but other than that I think most of our area runs mid-upper 40s to near 50. Now the next cutter slated for later next week looks like one that will drive some very warm air into the area with no CAD setup out front and a significant southerly flow. 850 temps are progged in the 10-15ºC range for a fairly extended period ahead of that per Euro and GFS. If that gets mixed down that'll def be a warm period.

Got some steady light mood flakes falling.

Fresh coating with the scattered snow showers around. 17°F with a bit of a breeze. Winter is def still alive and well tonight.

As many winter forecasts as I saw this winter that seemed to target the Mid-Atl/NE I-95 corridor for the biggest snows this winter, the setup for disappointment was already there in that regard. I think a lot of people hinged on seeing major North Atlantic blocking for a change, which didn't happen. We don't necessarily need a -NAO to succeed in this region but it becomes a lot more important in that region as a good -NAO pattern (esp coupled with a +PNA) helps to suppress storms and track them in a manner that targets the I-95 corridor, which can often be to the detriment of at least some of us in here of course. The funny part is that you look at big portions of lower VA and NC and they have had an above average winter from the Dec and Jan storms that missed us, which were the two brief times we had a suppressed storm track (esp with that Dec storm). MJO was a big influence this winter, and it ran through the 4-6 phases not once but twice (Dec and Jan). We finally have it running in a more classic fashion through the whole 8-1-2-3 end coupled with the crash in the SOI the last several weeks and we finally got the pattern response despite still not really having a western ridge and North Atlantic blocking. I certainly am not ready to say that we're done yet, although I think when this major cold pattern relents at the end of the week it will go to a more typical March regime being highly unsettled and variable. Given the supportive MJO/SOI run and whatnot, I think there will be plenty of cold running around. The typical transition to spring with warm air fighting back could help promote the more amplified pattern we've been looking for in terms of getting a big storm. We've had big storms in mid-late March the last two Marches in a row, plus this winter's Mid-November storm. We certainly could see that situation again at some point this month.

It wasn't a particularly prolific LES season off of Erie. Remember Erie, PA had it's snowiest winter on record last year. Lake Erie has generally been iced over for the most part since late January and while that might be a little later than usual, the Great Lakes as a whole has quietly had the most ice coverage since frigid 2014-2015. The Lakes as of today have 74.2% ice coverage, which is quite impressive for early March. I mean yea typically you can correlate our cold snowy winters with blockbuster storms to the significant ice coverage in the Lakes but it usually is attributed to a dominant +PNA and/or -NAO regime.. which we had neither of this winter. To go with that, here's an animation of the max ice cover in the Great Lakes per year since 1973. There's been more year to year variability in coverage in the last 20 years. https://www.glerl.noaa.gov/data/ice/historicalAnim/

A fresh 0.3" this morning from the fluffy snow showers that are around brings my season total to 50.9". I consider getting into the 45-50" range as an average winter at this location, so pretty much playing with house money at this point. @Cashtown_Coop came really close to cracking 50" for the season with yesterday so we might end up slugging it out for top seasonal snowfall in the subforum haha.

Was out getting everything cleaned the rest of the way up a little bit ago. I also revisited the half of my deck I haven't bothered with since about Feb 12th and got measurement of the pack (needed a metal flat shovel for both things). Running roughly a 7-10" pack on most of the yard except for near the tree line on my one property edge. First pic is about a 30 pound chunk of frozen sleet/ice dislodged off the deck under the new snow from Fri and yesterday. Second one is the whole snowpack. You can see how solid the bottom half of it is. This stuff is going to take awhile to melt.

They did pretty well overall. The biggest issue with the models in the short range for our region was the more amped NAM and Euro shifting southeast a tad and tightening up the heavy snow axis, which made what was looking like a pretty widespread 6"+ over most of western and central PA in the 48-60hr range to where it ended up being. Track ended up not being an issue, as it was actually a very good track for the precip shield to impact the whole area as was evidenced by the majority of the state seeing at least a couple inches. It just ended up being a tight heavy snow axis, which is a hat tip to the Euro inside 48 hours after it shifted. But we did pretty well for the progressive nature of the system. You need at least two of three things to get the big snowstorm traditionally. A sizable western ridge, downstream blocking/canadian high pressure in place, and phasing of the jet streams. We had none of those things with this event, so the top end was limited. Once the storm was offshore and impacting New England it was able to tap into Atlantic moisture and the gradient between the warm water and a pretty cold airmass and robust 850-700 forcing likely set up that narrow band of excessive snows.

Man there must have been one heck of a meso band overnight as the storm went through SNE. Some 16-17" reports up there.

Lol, what's he measuring... on a windshield?

Yea I thought things came back enough in the near term for widespread 4-5" amounts here and over there in Pit. It's a pretty nice powder snow here and not the really wet snow the southern tier has. Just didn't get enough of the good rates to capitalize. Still not all that bad, it's still + snowfall at least.

Wow I'm not even to 3". My average is 2.7" attm. I did better on Friday morning's system than that. Have to see if this last band to the west makes it and gets us to the 3" mark here. The snow seemed to shut off a couple hours ahead of schedule.

I'm at about 2.3" with some light to moderate snow attm. Some pretty heavy returns building near Pittsburgh that look to be heading this direction.

I'd watch for road conditions to go down hill quick within the next couple hours in the LSV when the heavier stuff arrives over there and we cool surface temps. Down to 30ºF here (28ºF at KAOO)

I got caved roads, and fatties, and sirens haha. We’re rollin now.