Mount Joy Snowman

74 here, looks like MDT also hit 74 already so that daily high record is long gone, as we figured.

Wow, you shoot up a lot faster than I do down here in the hollow. I'm sitting at 53 but expect that to skyrocket within the next 1-2 hours.

The daily max temp record for Harrisburg for March 11 is the "softest" of the entire month, at only 69 set in 1977. Almost all the surrounding day records are upper 70s to low 80s. That puppy is due to be broken and I don't think there's much doubt we take it down today, probably by a substantial margin.

64 here, still taking those static shocks when I get out of the car with a RH of only 36%

Gentlemen, I hate to disrupt the excitement over the never ending train of massive snowstorms that are sure to pummel our area in the ensuing weeks, but let us take a moment to mourn what is one of the saddest days of the year for weather weenies everywhere, that being the day that marks us having to wait an extra hour for the weather models to come through. Yes, Sunday will be a day of tears as we all come to grips with the fact that 12z is no loner 7am but rather the dreaded 8am. However, let us find comfort in the extra hour of evening daylight as we march towards the celebration of the vernal equinox at 5:37am EDT Saturday, March 20, 2021. Rest easy gentle souls, as 2am on Sunday, November 7, 2021 will be here before you know it and order shall be restored. In the meantime, hang in there friends and know that Mount Joy Snowman sends his condolences and his blessings.

I hit 66 today. FYI, for those who are unaware there is a new resource that came online this past year that I believe to be the best site for real-time Pennsylvania observations called the Keystone Mesonet. It's a collaboration between various entities like PennDOT, DEP, FAA, Turnpike Comm., PEMA, etc. that aggregates all of their existing sensors and weather stations into one location. You can click on any individual location to view the live data, which in some cases is fairly detailed. Also has a pretty nice radar that can be overlaid. It's very user-friendly, see link and screenshot below. I may or may not have been loosely involved in said project. Enjoy! https://keystone-mesonet.org/

Well I just found the following under the NWS's snow measurement guidelines: Note: Hail accumulation is not entered with snow and ice pellets. The plot hath thicketh! It appears we have a number of erroneous snow reports in the official record books. Perhaps these guidelines are newer but in any case I think we need a full investigation conducted by a council of American Weather Forum's greatest minds. Alright alright I digress.....

Well played sir, well played.

Haha I assumed the same. However, this is supposed to be our official climate site from which our climate record is established and records/norms are broken/set, no!? I guess my expectations are just too high, naive to think there wasn't some errant reporting going on back in the day. So, I did a random spot check of the daily almanac for most of those Trace reports for June through August and sure enough they were all very warm days with substantial precip reported (i.e. T'storms and hail). But again, you'd think there would be a few more given the period of record extending back to 1889. Who knows. I will say, if my limited research is any indication, it appears as though last year's May 9th snow event was in fact the latest in the season Harrisburg has ever recorded snow. Fascinating.

Fair point but hail is so clearly a convective phenomenon associated with strong updrafts in warm season thunderstorms, one would think observers would be taught to differentiate. As you say though, they are both ice haha. And yes, if hail were able to be counted then we'd expect to see many more days during the warm season with Trace amounts listed but we don't sooooooo.........great discussion Bubbler, thanks for entertaining my tangent on this random Tuesday morning ha. Would love to hear other's thoughts.

So then the question becomes, are you allowed to record hail as snowfall?? I mean, I know it's frozen but I wouldn't think so, and then isn't that clear evidence of a discrepancy in the record keeping? When you search the databases the variable field is clearly listed as "snowfall". Perhaps some of the official observers on the site could answer. Thanks.

Funny you bring that up, as I was just thinking about those old-time reports. The only month in which Harrisburg has never recorded snowfall is September. There were two occasions with a Trace amount in August -- 8/13/93 and 8/28/34. There are a number of Trace reports for the months of May, June and July (even a .1" from July 1930 and a .2" in June of 1938), mostly from the 1920s through the 1950s. I often wonder about the record keeping and standards that were in place back then but perhaps that is just my recency bias showing. One can't help but wonder though if some of those old summer reports from Harrisburg weren't just graupel, hail, etc. that were mistakenly reported as snow. It's just sooooooo hard to envision snow falling in Harrisburg in July ha.

Wow that 5" total on April 9, 1996 along the Mason-Dixon is mighty impressive. That's prior to my personal record keeping. I have most recently observed April snow on April 1, 2018 with 2.1", while MDT set a daily snowfall record of 3.9". On April 17, 2018, I had heavy flurries but it couldn't lay and MDT set a record Trace snowfall. Also saw 1" on April 9, 2016 (believe this was the first April snow since 2003) when it snowed all morning but had a hard time accumulating, although some parts of Dauphin and Lebanon Counties got 4-8". There was a major snowstorm around April 22-23, 2012 across northern/western PA that was highly elevation-dependent, with valleys getting virtually nothing and ridgetops 8+ (Laurel Summit got 24"). May 9th last year I had SS but no accumulation; however, MDT set record snowfalls of a Trace on back-to-back days along with setting its all-time low temp record for the month of May at 30 degrees. On May 14, 2013, I had a buddy claim it snowed for five minutes while he was fishing at a lake right by my house, for whatever that's worth ha. The latest I have ever personally witnessed snow in PA was leaving Bradford on May 15, 2016, where it was coming down heavy. My one buddy has a family cabin on top of a mountain near the Tioga/Potter line and the old timers talk about seeing snow there in June/July back in the day. Anyway, enough of personal story time haha.

Love this attitude, no excuses play like a champion!

Ha yeah that's the definition of zonal flow if I've ever seen it, easy forecasting if that holds.

Wow that's impressive for an at-home wind reading. I took my anemometer down about a year ago because I just didn't have a good spot for it and would only record readings that were like half of reality. Good stuff Carlisle! Ah yes 'ol Stu Ostro, isn't he one of the godfathers of winter storms and hurricanes? It's backdoor cold front season!

January of 1994 will live in infamy for its cold records. What a month that was.

To anyone using that NOWdata tab on the NWS site (https://w2.weather.gov/climate/xmacis.php?wfo=ctp), be sure to select "Harrisburg Area" as the location and not somewhere specific like MDT, so that you get all of the data compiled from the various Harrisburg reporting sites going back to 1888.

Harrisburg hit -1 during that March 2015 cold outbreak, its coldest March temp ever recorded. I hit -3 at my house during that time. The coldest temp I have ever recorded in my brief ten years of keeping data was -5.2 at 6:38am on January 1, 2018. That was during a stretch of 14 consecutive days we had where the temp never reached freezing, one shy of the all-time record of 15.

That would be awesome. Good luck mate.

You may be able to zoom in on these, max and min tables for harrisburg....

Yep, see this link for the confusing history: https://www.weather.gov/media/ctp/ClimateStationHistory/Harrisburg LCD Site History.pdf CTP used to have easy-to-access quick links for the daily records under the "Climate and Past Weather" tab at the top of their page but has since made everyone go through the NOWdata screen which some people find unintuitive and difficult to use. Not sure why they got rid of the old links which took you to nice simple tables for every day of the year for both Harrisburg and Williamsport. They still display the "daily normals" tables in this format but for some reason made the daily records more difficult to access. But it's all there if you're willing to dig a little.

1.16" of rain for me yesterday. Sump pump is not running so that is a win ha. My February totals check in at 4.21" liquid and 18.2" snow. Seasonal snowfall sits at 33.4". Looks like we dry out for the extended period, with a couple splashes of anomalous cold mixed in. Should be pretty boring for the foreseeable future but we'll see if March throws any surprises at us, she usually does.

I recorded .29” liquid from Friday night’s event and after much poking around I’m going with .5” snow. Hey @Blizzard of 93 looks like MDT officially recorded a T of snow yesterday as you feared haha. This despite the PNS showing someone in Middletown reporting .4”. The beat goes on. Time for rain.

Nice, I have an uncle that lives in Pequea Township but he is in the northern end right along the conestoga river. I’ve been in West Hempfield for over 25 years now. You are so right about the elevation down that way. I’m a bit of an elevation fanatic, weird I know haha. There isn’t a topo map I haven’t studied. So many high hills down there. I really believe even most people who live in lanacster have no clue about the southern end. Solanco is such a massive school district area-wise. Thanks for chiming in!