Mount Joy Snowman

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!

Yeah you aren’t kidding. I’ve had a couple occasions where i was raining down at my house and drove to the top of the ridge where it was snowing, despite only being a couple hundred feet higher. It’s pretty rare but it does happen. See my prior comment for my thoughts about MDT being our main climo site ha.

Yeah I hate that the bulk of our local climatology is recorded and viewed through the lens of that site. Don’t feel it represents the area very well but what are you gonna do.

Haha yes you know it’s coming. They already recorded a T for yesterday’s snowfall but that is probably accurate since it ended at midnight. We anxiously await today’s report, perhaps pull an all-nighter to see the official post-midnight report.

Gotchya, so basically just improvise the best you can. Side note, the closest I’ve ever golfed out your way is The Bridges out near New Oxford, beautiful course. With a few exceptions I pretty much just stick to the Lancaster County courses. I had a baby this past year so didn’t get to play much. Actually, let me be clear, my wife had a baby ha. Golf season will be here before you know it!

No excuses play like a champion! But seriously that works out great for you. Let me ask you this, in the hypothetical scenario where cashtown coop, despite has grandest efforts, couldn’t be around for a live measurement of a snowfall that then melted off, how would he handle such a situation?

Woke up at 3am and took a peak out the window, all non-paved surfaces solidly covered, had to be at least 1/2”. All mostly gone this morning. Hard to know what to put in the books. I used to have situations like this being at work all day and knowing accumulating snow fell but then by the time I got home it was gone, would always try and estimate from other sources in those instances. How do the official reporters on the board handle these situations? Thanks!

Thanks to all those who responded to my post about past weather forums. I don't recognize most of them but I did figure out that the site the former Accuweather folks started is WX Disco; however, it seems you have to be a member to even view anything. Anyway, as for weather, looks like the Euro/CMC/NAM all at least kinda sorta-ish have something in the pipeline for us, whereas the GFS wants nothing to do with anything for the foreseeable future, only giving us ~1/2" of total precip over its entire 384hr run. Welp, time to start my weekend. Is there anything better than Fridays off? The answer is no, cheers boys!

random question for the board.....so I have dabbled in various weather forums (not posting just lurking) for many years now and was just taking a trip down memory lane. There was one with a guy who was pretty well-known by the handle Undertakersson (UTS for short) that I believe may have been the Accuweather forums before they were shut down? And didn't the people on that site go on to create their own site, something like Weather Disco? Also I used to follow some older forum that was more like a blog style but can't remember the name? Any of this ringing a bell to anyone? I figured you losers would know