Albedoman

to my weather friends. Are you enjoying the leftover snow and frigid temps today ? Gets in you the Christmas mood. Whats up next? The overrunning plot that I said would happen after yesterdays snow event in my last forecast appears to be happening on cue. A chance of freezing drizzle/rain and or sleet late Friday night into Saturday morning appears to be on the horizon. It should not be much as as the warm air quickly infiltrates all levels of the atmosphere and changes over to rain which will become heavy at times. The temps will agin warm up to the 50's. Another 1.5 to 2 inches of rain will cause flooding along the Little Lehigh Creek and low spots along Spring Creek Rd. Drive carefully The 6-12 inch snow event that I was talking about for midweek next week is still in the picture. It has not gone way. The models are having a very difficult time handling a Miller A type storm event as we have not seen one in many years. A Miller A type of winter storm event is when a low pressure travels up toward our area from the deep south. Placement of that low pressure can give us a lot of snow or simply go out into the Atlantic Ocean and miss us completely (a southern slider). The models are having a difficult time handling the upper area currents right now due to major changes in the upper atmosphere at this time of the year. Predicting when and where this low pressure sets up along the eastern seaboard is difficult so mid range modeling become somewhat unreliable for snow accumulations until we get within three days of the actual event. The fact that we are also on the rain/snow line line makes predicting this event even harder. so stay tune. If this event does happen the ground should be white all the way to Christmas day. There is also another chance of snow actually on Christmas day too.

I have decided to post my forecasts from my facebook page in the banter thread to stimulate some discussion. feel free to discuss and I welcome your opinions to my weather friends: still holding firm with my earlier forecast from last week. It will be warm tomorrow for this time of the year, maybe even hit 60 degrees before the front comes through in the evening with humid breezy SE wind. Then watch the temps plummet nearly 25 degrees after the passage of the cold front with perhaps a thundershower or brief heavy rain shower before changing to a moderate snow in the early morning with a stiff NW wind. My final call for snow accumulation on Wednesday morning snow event is 1-3 inches for the LV. If heavier bands set up between Philly and the LV, we could see some 4+ inch of snow in areas but most if not all will be on the grass. If the snow rates are also heavy enough though it will accumulate on the roads even though they are wet and somewhat warm now.. I still expect a winter weather advisory for Wednesday morning to be issued so please drive carefully. The snow flakes could be huge with good dendritic growth in the heavier snow bands. Anything on the roads will freeze Wednesday evening as highs on Thursday will barely reach freezing and overnight lows in the upper teens. It will feel like winter on Thursday, believe me with a cold wind chill in the air and the ground covered in snow. Long range models are pointing to another possible more significant snow event around the 18-19th time frame. Initial model runs indicate 6-12 inches of snow. This amount could give us a white Christmas. Still too early to say for sure but of course I will keep you informed. This storm is exhibiting the same character and path of a good "benchmark storm" which puts the coastal low in a prime spot for eastern PA to get a significant snow storm. We will see.

It would be more lively if Lehigh Valley and the rest of Eastern PA were welcomed as part of this region. Many posters in this Philly and NY regions consider those who live in the LV outsiders with no home even though over 1 million people live in the Lehigh, Northampton, Carbon and Berks counties. Its strange but we are the third largest metro area in PA with no identity by the American Weather Forum yet the Poconos lies in our area and we are the fastest growing area in the state. There are more people who live in our metro area than some of the U S states. With the geography of our area, widespread different precip types along with different amounts of precip occur every winter. Stop and think why EPAWA does so well here- because Mt Holly and even the American Forum fails to recognize that we are third most populous area in the state with a wide range of physical geography. Every day like others , I must go to the NY metro area, or Mid Atlantic area or even the upstate NY/PA area. Why can't the American Weather forum rename Philly area and call it the Eastern PA forum? That would help bring more posters to this regional weather forum. If you take Philly and the LV areas along , we are talking more population than most of the regions put together. I say rename the forum to Eastern PA and watch it come back to life. Otherwise it, will continue to be abysmal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehigh_Valley