Mount Joy Snowman

15z RAP hot off the press, still holding off the sleet for the most part and staying the course. Hey, at least all the crappy models still have our back bahahahaha. I'm riding with the RAP/FV3 combo; what could go wrong!?

The Ukie holds with 10+ for the forum but to be honest I think it's struggling with the sleet depiction and underdoing it a bit, unfortunately. Has a decent primary into western PA and displays a weird orientation of the sleet axis. But I would be thrilled with its result at this point.

If MDT falls to 8" Lancaster is in for a world of hurt ha. I think that's going a bit too far and MDT still gets close to a foot but can't rule it out. Not good if true that upstream is underperforming.

What's discouraging for those of us down this way is the amount of qpf being lost to sleet is growing across all models and with every run and is now very likely to impact snow totals to the point where I believe about half of Lanc Co will see less than 10", perhaps 8". Again, still a very nice storm but the slow bleed leading up to game time is never fun. Most of the forum still looking at 12+ so can't gripe too hard. Comes with the territory living down this way but earlier in the week I never would have thought mixing issues would be a thing with this storm. Frustrating with these temps.

Sleet intrusion more pronounced on 12z GFS, still a nice front end thump. Lancaster ranges from 8-13" from southern border to Etown.

I will be shocked if we see any freezing rain and frankly don't understand the forecasts that are mentioning it. I believe MAG or someone of the like brought this up last night and I agree, just don't see how anything other than frozen is possible with the extreme nature and depth of cold in the column. Even if there is a warm nose that melts the flakes up around 6,000' or so someone is going to need to explain to me how the F it would be possible for that droplet to fall the rest of the way to the surface in THAT cold without refreezing into an ice pellet? Like how?? There is more than enough depth to fall through and lord knows the temps are cold enough for the lowest few thousand feet. It would defy everything I know about winter precip. Someone smarter than me would need to smack some sense into me.

The WRF suite also has copious sleet all through the afternoon hours and slightly reduced its totals from 0z. RRFS continues to mirror the NAM, but even worse, and has 4-7" across Lanc. The Mesos are talking to us. If the globals show further north trends and thermal breakdowns I will officially be a bit nervous.

Bradford hit -18 wowsers. MDT may be on record watch on Tuesday. FV3, which is a model I typically loathe, is still showing a monster all-snow storm, so I will choose to ride it to the death this time haha......

3K is even worse, with Lancaster crew losing over half its total QPF to mix. Ugly.

The problem with the NAM is the sleet bombing happens during the best rates and we lose a ton of qpf. As others have stated, we need the thump to come in hot and heavy and the switch over to be after best rates have passed. NAM has a general 6-8" for the southern tier counties. It doesn't change the fact that it's a highly impactful event but it would change snow maps quite a bit. Do we take this seriously? I think we have to at this point, even if it may be a shade overdone.

I mean, this is only 1pm.......outlier? We sure hope

NAM going hog wild with the sleet through the late morning and early afternoon hours, more so than even previous runs. Not backing down. Sheesh.

NAM through 24 is nearly identical to 6z.

HRRR cuts snow totals a bit for southern tier counties due to sleet encroachment but still ~10". Sets up a Route 30 battle zone through much of the late afternoon. Rates likely to determine precip type, but one thing that is becoming clear, those of us down this way will indeed see some sleet during the height of the storm, perhaps significantly so. I just never trust the globals to properly capture the warm noses and it seems it may have happened again. Positive spin, as others have alluded, some sleet on top of a nice thump just adds to pack retention. High impact event no matter how you slice it.

Sleet line definitely encroaching much more at the height of the storm than at 6z, up to Lanc/Dauphin border by ~3pm. Edit: Although much like 6z, it starts to get beat back right after that, a true battle zone.