MAG5035

Watches just issued, entire CTP CWA. Edit: Glancing at the products, pretty uniform on snow totals. up to 6" central counties, 4-8" north central and 3-6 Sus Valley. Up to a tenth ice in north central/Sus Valley and 0.25" in central counties.

The new NAM was pretty close to making this whole ordeal one event in the southern tier. Very little break in between. HRRR looks pretty good currently for the western PA gang with tonight's snow.

Who in here that posts even semi regularly is trolling the MA? Most of our regulars usually keep to themselves up here.. and the ones that post down there are on the edge of that subforum. The only thing I've seen other than weather discussion in here lately is some enlightening advice on steaks, moose biscuits, and kanjer cakes.. lol.

Yea it certainly does, this should be a really good CAD setup. I dunno if I buy widespread warning snowfall totals yet. The 12z NAM weatherbell snowmap really, REALLY had a ton of inflation via heavy mixed precip, although a few inches probably came from tonights wave as well. There's a lot of sleet and freezing rain conditionals on P-types. This is the Accuweather version of the 12z NAM snowfall, which I feel is more reasonable. Now the Euro's take seems to have heavier precip up front in the snow phase of the system, especially in the central counties thus the snowfall bullseye. The Euro's snow totals are legitmate, and it still has a drawn out mixing phase after like the NAM does. Warning totals are doable if we get whacked with heavy precip up front. The Euro/UK seem to be the models hanging on to keeping the column good for snow the longest. I'm def leaning colder solutions for this setup, but my concern would be enough warming aloft that a mix to sleet takes the top off potential snow amounts. I like a region wide high end advisory snow wise to start with... say Central counties 4-5", LSV-southern tier 2-4". Location of meso features (heavier precip via forcing etc) could dictate where a region of warning snows resides. Right now I think 6-8" is top end on snowfall potential, and for a primary into the lakes region seeing that anywhere in C-PA would be impressive.

Don't ever remember a lakes cutter delivering double digits here. There's a first time for everything I guess haha.

Yea, ultimately it's a WAA situation overall with the parent low running west of us. The CAD setup though with the high pressure to the north is looking very stout. The alignment would bleed in cold air efficiently not only at the surface, but even at the 925 and 850mb levels. So I think the front end snow aspect of this system has a chance to do well before mixing. If you look at the height maps at those levels you even see the high pressure center in place there as well. It's pretty impressive IMO, it looks like the best setup of the winter thus far for such things. The 1040ish high is progged to be in a good spot and is not being easily or quickly moved off. Aside from the front end snow potential, this has me pretty concerned about ice storm impacts. My hope is the cold air stays deep enough to allow for more sleet over freezing rain. Here's the morning 6z NAM freezing rain QPF. That's some pretty significant stuff, with >0.25" for most of the Sus Valley and major icing in the Laurels and central counties. The Euro has been very cold at 925mb and the surface too. Some areas of interior central don't really ever go above freezing at all on those models. The GFS still eventually routs out the cold and changes all to rain for a pretty decent period. I don't really buy much plain liquid at the moment with this setup. I anticipate CTP needing to open up with winter storm watches over most of not all the CWA (separate from the early snowfall this evening (Sun Night) for the multiple impacts and prospect of decent snow up front.

Few comments on the overall pattern before we get too close to our upcoming weather issues on tap. My concern going forward in the next couple weeks is the major -PNA (western US trough) that has established itself. We have a really nice -EPO ridge in the Pac established as well but it seems that the alignment wants to dump the core of the anomalous low heights and the primary trough into the western US. With the major -EPO ridge shooting up into AK, that keeps us from torching via a Pacific flow... so overall temps look to be seasonable to maybe slightly below. On the other side there's no good -NAO or downstream ridging to help buckle heights on our side of the country. That leaves us vulnerable to cutters from a storm track standpoint, which has become a theme this winter. Lack of -NAO has been a theme too although thats been for more like the last 5+ years. That could possibly change via the East Pac ridge into AK shifting east towards the west coast in time or with establishment of + heights downstream in the NAO realm. I would imagine MJO activity is driving the Pac pattern alignment, we've been mired in the P6-7 border region with the index making a backtrack towards 6 the last several days. It is forecast to get towards 8 but this backtrack has been pushing that prospect back in time. I think we will see the 8-1-2-3 run we're looking for from that teleconnection. But we might not get there till late in the month. We'll be vulnerable to cutting storms in the meantime. That's the most negative i've ever seen this site have the PNA.

Lol slipping in der ICON. I know because the ICON model on TT only has algorithms for rain and snow on it's P-types. There would be all kinds of pretty colors over 3/4s of PA if it had sleet and freezing rain ptypes. I will say the Euro is similarly cold with 2m temps, at least in PA. The European continues to look the most significant in the winter storm department. It really anchors the cold not only at the surface but up to 925mb as well with some surface low reflection on the Mid-Atlantic coast. Hour 102, which is the best 6hr precip frame, still has 850 temps below zero east of the Laurel's. It's implying significant snow up front over the central and LSV counties (at least 3-6"). Hour 108 shows sub 0ºC 850 temps evacuated from C-PA but 925mb subfreezing temps still solidly anchored. Euro evolution is a snow to extended sleet/freezing rain type event with probably a turnover to rain at the very end southern tier and Laurels. I really like the alignment of things at 925mb (3000ft). I mean I really don't like the primary low west of PA thing but with the low so far to the west in the western lakes region and the secondary development trying to take place at the Mid-Atlantic coast.. the more easterly wind component allows for the cold air to bleed in efficiently from the NE via ageostrophic flow. It's a great look if extended significant wintry mix events are your thing. The GFS is doing the same general thing, but once again despite actually having a stronger high to the north (although high is a bit more NE), it's much warmer overall at all the important levels. So it still has a good chunk of front end frozen but is much more of an extended transition to plain rain.

Some thoughts on the overnight runs.. Models are seemingly starting to zero in on a cutting storm Tuesday that will have a high pressure placed to the north sufficient for at least initial wintry precipitation. Interesting thing about this setup is the parent low is being progged to cut up so far west that it may in fact help our cold air damming situation. The parent low moves into the western lakes region, stacks/matures and then we start seeing some secondary development on the coast. With the 0z suite, GFS has a stronger surface high to the north but the European has much colder temps aloft at 850 and esp 925mb, implying an extended snow-mix scenario for a large portion of C-PA. Both models put down a fair amount of frozen up front. This potential storm setup reminds me a bit of Dec 2009. Not that Dec 2009 (the 20th Mid-Atlantic bomb) but Dec 9, 2009. Similar setup, low to Wisconsin/western lakes region and weak secondary off the Mid-Atlantic. That one put down 6+ up front in places like UNV.

I know I'm sick of the rain. If cold and dry the rest of the winter meant no more cutting rainstorms or rain in general, I'd almost take it.... almost. Just to think, it was all the way back to last February when this excessive precip train got rolling.

That's what this kind of a -PNA will get them.

Wow, what a monumental difference between that and the regular GFS. As much as I wish that solution would happen, I think the Phase 7 MJO and -PNA definitely favors a parent low towards the lakes for that event. Now whether we can get a secondary miller B solution out of this in a timely fashion will dictate if we get much snow out of it. The models didn't really go in a great direction this afternoon on the 12z suite where the Euro took a low into the lakes with a late secondary low. Yea there's some front end business but it wasn't a great setup. The big sticking point I see with this right now is we don't have any help in the NAO realm in the form of any established blocking. Meanwhile, the PNA index might hit the earth's core with how low its supposed to go (-5!). The negative EPO is good but the western troughing via a PNA of that magnitude with no NAO or established Canadian blocking over top of us to counter is no bueno. I worry about this next event becoming another cutter with maybe a front end mess and/or ending changeover type deal.

I'm glad I was able to get away and stay up at Blue Knob a couple days over the weekend while it was still deep winter and get some good snowboarding in. Snowpack is in full meltdown today with temps around the 60 degree mark. With regards to this week and beyond, I've basically been reserved to this week being that one week where winter is just about completely routed from our area. These things happen, especially when you have a massively negative PNA vs a neutral NAO and an MJO working near the phase 6 realm. Even though we've cracked into 7 the last few days, tropical forcing effects have some lag on the mid-latitudes. And JFM phase 7 is still a warm phase in the east but just not having as strong of a correlation. JFM Phase 6 has the highest correlation to eastern warmth. Precip departures are a lot harder to find strong correlation related to the MJO but JFM Phase 6 signals a wet Ohio Valley pretty decently. And well, that's where gonna be at the latter half of this week with likely some flooding issues in the Ohio River and associated tributaries. MJO forecasts are currently indicating, for the most part, an attempted loop back into 6 a bit before going through 7 into 8. A couple are forecasting very high amplitude into 8. If we eventually make an 8-1-2-3 type loop with the MJO in the next 30-45 days, we could set up a potential strong back end of winter in terms of more favorable support from that teleconnection. And the MJO has been active this winter and has shown signs it has had influence on our patterns. Sidenote to these maps, the significance percentage map on the right works oppositely to what one might think, as the lower % number correlates to the higher correlation. As taken from the MJO site: So with that in mind, notice how strongly the 4-5-6 phases correlate to eastern warmth (esp phase 6). You don't necessarily see such a strong connection on the colder phases. It kind of makes it impressive how cold we were while we were coming through those phases. But it also can be a factor in how rapidly our ferocious arctic shot left.

Light snow started. 6ºF

Mesowest station down the street right at 0ºF, my thermometer's at 2. Closing out January with 18" and one warning level event for the month and 31" on the season thus far. Have 23 consecutive days of snow on the ground and counting that started on Jan 9th. It was a pretty wintry month here overall.

Cambria County to my west is in the Laurel's where they can squeeze out more snow in setups like this on the ridges. Although I live pretty much at the bottom of the eastern leading ridge of the Laurel's. I'm at about 1300' elevation and you take the road a block down the street 5 miles up that mountain and your at the top on the county line and at >2400'. Sometimes I can do almost as well with the close proximity but I think the slightly greater QPF is going to favor the ridges in the southern half of Cambria. I personally expect about 2" here. The wave fades southeast so will have to see how far it reaches into the Sus Valley, plus there may be a little bit of downscoping in play. The 1" line is probably going to run close or maybe even slightly SW of a State College to H-burg line. This should be a really high ratio snow, CTP expects 20:1 type ratios. Moderating temps aloft should put the 850-700mb level pretty much in the ideal DGZ range -12 to 18ºC, where there's not a ton of lift with this really weak wave but it's where it needs to be for good ratios and surface temps remain plenty cold.

Got a nice surface temp IR snapshot of PA tonight with no clouds over the commonwealth. You can make out all of PA's major rivers and Raystown Lake. To support some of those blues in the -20s Celsius east of the river in the H-burg region there's a mesowest ob site in Paxtonia section of town with -9ºF and -7ºF at Fort Indiantown Gap (KMUI)

-4.7ºF on the atomic clock thermometer, geesh.

Your probably good for -5 or so even with a decent breeze. A look at dew points on some of the meso ob sites show dews in the -10 to -20 range and a lot below -15ºF region wide. Meso ob site closest to Tamaqua in Tuscarora State Park showing 1 degree with a -18ºF dew point.

It sure is, I saw KJST at the top of the hill is already at -6ºF

Had roughly a half inch of snowfall this morning/afternoon, which has been blown around with the blustery winds. Back to 2 degrees here according to the nearest mesowest station up the street. An actual weather station for my home is something I've wanted to invest in, I only have an atomic clock thermometer for getting a rough temp. That's at 5ºF but it runs a couple degrees high. Either way, it's not going to be a matter of if we go below zero but how far below zero it goes.

Before we start assessing the significance of our warm up next week too heavily I also wouldn't sleep on Fridays snow event either if I were below I-80 and especially along the turnpike south. Could be another 1-3" scattered higher amounts type event. Looks like higher would favor Laurel's but if this ends up a tad more juiced up we could be talking another advisory type event across the southern tier.

A big problem we've had this winter has been storm track when it has been especially active and the pattern has been progressive. Considering we're in the middle of lap 2 of the MJO 4-6 realm in just the past month and a half I think we've been pretty fortunate. I think there's too much cold air in the pattern for us to have a dominant warm pattern in the east but I think the unfavorable phases has been rearing it's ugly head in the form of storms coming up a bit too far west. The rapid warm up early next week is probably something that's been overdue, and it might not last more than 3-5 days. Comparing this winter to 2011-2012... nah. Harrisburg probably already has more snowfall this winter than they had in that whole winter (12.5"). I've had close to as much snow just this month as I did in that winter (had low to mid 20s for the winter) and snow on the ground since the 7th. Aside from the two snow events that left our region high and dry in favor of the Mid-Atlantic region (both times with MJO in better phases), this winter thus far has favored interior regions in PA/NY and New England. 2011-2012 favored no one in the Mid-Atlantic/NE.

Tamaqua has went from snow desert to snowtown.

The stuff that fell here this morning was the same way. It was probably the fluffiest snowfall all winter so far. Snow growth must be in the right spot for good ratios.