Hurricane Agnes

Another snow shower going on here. Temp is 35.

Getting some pancake flakes that have been coating the cars and grass. Temp just above freezing at 35.

Am up to 0.18" with round 2 and temp at 36 with some fog and drizzle.

I have an older Ambient WS-1001 that I am about to retire (I've had it for almost 6 years and it is slowly dying). I bought an Ambient WS-2000 the past year as a replacement and have the 2 side-by-side. The main impetus was the ease of getting the data online and since I can't put anything up on my roof, I figured to just go with an all-in-one setup (so my wind readings are more for a "subjective" reading of direction than for speed accuracy). I did mount the two stations up on masts attached to my privacy fence's 4" wide posts so that the 1001 is about 6.5 ft up and the 2000 is about 7.5 ft up. I also bought a Stratus rain gauge that I mounted on a fence post across from them - about 3.5 ft away and about 6.5ft up, so I can get a rainfall comparison (manual vs tipping bucket). So far for rainfall, the readings have been pretty close, +/- a couple tenths (usually the Stratus has been more on the tenths "less" compared to the Ambients, when not getting matching amounts, which I believe is within the margin of error). As I delved into the station discussions on wxforum, since several Ambient items (including the station) are made by the hardware company "Fine Offset", that got me off onto other tangents like buying the mini Ecowitt GW-1000 indoor gateway/station to capture data from the WS-2000 as well as data transmissions from other Ambient and/or Ecowitt/Fine Offset add-ons (like a lightning detector, PM2.5 sensors, soil moisture probes, temp/humidity probes, etc). Ended up then buying a Raspberry Pi 4 (Cana kit) and getting weewx up and running on it to generate pages on a web server also set up on the Pi, so that I can look at the data stream formatted on a local webpage. I am still putzing around with that as I find time tweaking the code. I do like my lightning detector and once you get it sited/configured so it is sensitive enough to pick up strikes but not so sensitive that it experiences stray interference, it has been pretty spot on when I've compared the activity it picks up to that displayed on places like lightningmaps.org. I actually have it indoors a couple feet from a window pointed NW where the storms tend to blow in from. I know a number of people have them outside under eaves or somehow enclosed/protected outside, but I knew that would be tricky to do here (and that goes for my outdoor PM2.5 sensor that I have Macgyvered to sit under my Stratus with a tiny plastic seedling "greenhouse cover" over it to keep it mostly out of the weather and I know that model has a limited operating temp range too although they were supposed to also come out with a multiple particle size meter that I'm hoping expands the temp range). So I have lots of projects going! I believe the WS-5000 is basically a WS-2000 with an ultrasonic wind sensor.

Done here and now in the dry slot. Got 0.05" precip (mix of snow/IP/rain). Temp is up to 35.

Paul's report...

Getting drizzle here and the temp is still above freezing but down to 33. Am thinking any frozen is melting before getting to the ground here. Round one may be ending shortly.

Still have light rain here with some flakes mixed in. Temp still holding at 34.

Somebody who is located near Paul (in Elverson, Chesco just adjacent to East Nantmeal) is reporting 1.0".

Started with some flurries, then it switched to IP (with little piles of it), then it switched to some white rain, and now currently raining. Temp here is marginal at 34. Radar about 5 - 10 minutes before 8 am and right around 8 am when it was starting to transition.

Have been crazy busy the past few days but ended up with a 2.41" 2-day event total (1.84" + 0.57") Christmas Eve into early Christmas Day and then the temperature bottom fell out (a bit earlier than I expected), dropping from the low 60s down to the upper 30s and eventually to near 30 by late in the day. Ended up driving through the Christmas Eve rain and was thankfully able to not have to drive past where a tree went down during the squall when I was out the next day. Had pixie dust flakes Christmas Day afternoon but other than that, all the snow is completely gone including the plowed mounds at the store parking lots. Had a couple 22/23 mornings with low dps until this morning when some apparent virga (got no bucket tips or even wet walks) event came through. Otherwise currently 48 and not a cloud in the sky.

Firefox had announced that any versions after the version that they have been rolling out this week (v84.x), will no longer support Flash, so most browsers have been wrapping up their dropping of support for it it - https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/84.0/releasenotes/ And apparently Adobe itself is dropping support of it (it has been considered a big security risk and source of all kinds of malware, etc) - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/end-support-adobe-flash I remember when "Shockwave Flash" first came out not long after the graphical "web" was getting underway to replace the text-based early web that deployed in the early - mid '90s. There is still a lot of content out there (particularly training stuff) that is still using Flash and I expect it has been difficult for some of the hosts of that material to get it converted to HTML 5 video format (and/or considering whether it is even worth converting if the info has been deprecated and/or updated). One of the coolest Weather-related flash presentations was the depiction of the type of damage that one might expect with the various hurricane intensities. NHC had embedded it on one of their pages - https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/prepare/hazards.php Thankfully the creator had put it on YouTube about 5 years ago -

Final measurements out there (compacted from sleet/snow, average 5 spots including my little board) was 5.51". The big PITA was doing the liquid equivalent. Just trying to get the tube off the mount was a nuisance. I did both what had collected in the tube and then a core sample. What was interesting (other than my back door being drifted in ) was how powdery it was - even with all the sleet and the period of freezing rain. I expected a whole layer of crunch on top with soft stuff underneath and it wasn't like that at all. I think that is because it never got above freezing here the entire event duration, including antecedent conditions (literally stayed in the 26 - 28 range during the event) and the same was the case post-storm, where it eventually bottomed out to 23 after 3 am and didn't hit freezing or above until just before 11 am. So I didn't seem to get my expected "club sandwich layers" when I did a core. In any event, the "practice" (open tube accumulation) + the tube "core" sample gave me 1.13" and 1.16" liquid equivalent respectively (needed 2.00" hot water to get each attempt melted in a reasonable time). Edit to note I used my trusty "spiked" lanternfly/stinkbug swatter as a spatula - worked great! So with the 5.51" and 1.15" (rounded) water equivalent gives me about 4.8 : 1 ratio. This makes sense with the temps and the periods of pancake/dinner-plate sized flakes initially (plus the periods of sleet and ZR) and then very fine stuff from the wrap-around. Current obs - a surprising 34 degrees with dp 28 and cloudy.

Congrats to Allentown for breaking a record (doubled the amount) for the date (12/16 )- PREVIOUS

I remember way back when Randy and crew chased and live-blogged on here (when it was still Eastern Weather) a lake-effect event up on the Tug Hill Plateau. That was a wild thread.