CarlislePaWx

Here in Carlisle just after 2:00pm...after enjoying the snow globe show for less than 30 minutes, the transition back to 100% sleet has taken place for a second time. During the past hour there was a mixture of snow and sleet. From primarily snow, I measured an additional 0.2" of snow with some sleet. This brings my storm total to 6.8". The temperature has risen just a tad to 12.2 degrees, which is still unbelievable that I've been in the low teens the entire day. Let's see what this next hour brings.

At 1:15pm here in Carlisle...I can confirm that the sleet line has moved south of me. I've had a rapid transition back to all snow as of about 10 minutes ago. Looks like I may have overreacted to the loss of snow earlier. As I type this the snow is increasing in intensity to nearly moderate. This is definitely heavy enough to resume accumulations. Before the sleet ended I took another measurement and measured an additional 0.3" of sleet (in the past hour). This brings my storm total now to 6.6". The temperature is 11.7 degrees. I almost can't believe it's almost snowing as hard as earlier! Let the accumulating fun begin again...lol.

At 12:15pm here in Carlisle...light to moderate sleet is falling with a few snowflakes mixed in...I'd say about 98% sleet and 2% snow. The temperature is currently 10.9 degrees. When I went to clear the board I took another measurement and saw that an additional 0.3" of snow/sleet had fallen. So, between 11:00am and 12:15pm I recorded an additional 0.6" bringing the storm total to 6.3". I'll have to wait until the end of the storm in order to determine the final qpf and SLR. Also, I did the meltdown at 11:45 so I don't have the meltdown of the 0.3" of sleet that fell between 11:45 and 12:15pm.

Well, it was fun while it lasted, however, the fun is now over. I began mixing with sleet about 20 minutes ago, and within 10 minutes it had gone over to nearly 100% sleet. I rushed out to bring in my gauge before the liquid equivalent began to rapidly contaminate the qpf. Unfortunately, I think I was a bit slow to recognize the changeover because the 6.0" storm total so far melted down to 0.70" producing a somewhat improbable ratio of 8.6 : 1. I'll be anxious to see the reports from others here that do meltdowns to see if anyone else comes in below 10:1. Once again, I'll report that I'm 100% sleet with a temperature of 11.1 degrees. I'll say this...it's a good thing I'm not 30 years or even 20 years younger (I'm 66) or I know I would have been incredibly disappointed. Instead, like most others here I'll focus on the positive aspects and the thrill of the chase. The only redeeming thing is that the storm total reached 6". I realize there's more of the storm yet to come so perhaps the sleet will accumulate enough to bring my storm total higher.

In Carlisle at 11:00am...it continues to snow moderately to occasionally heavily with mostly a fine flake consistency. The temperature is 10.8 degrees and the dew point is 7.5 degrees. During the past hour 0.7" of new snow has fallen bringing the storm total to 5.7". The temperature also fluctuates between 10.4 and 10.8 degrees. If NWS is right, some of the best rates should be coming in the next few hours. This is the first time since Jan 6, 2024 that a single event has exceeded 5.0".

Based off of the MJS report I'm thinking I no longer have a shot at my prediction of 19.59". I'm being facetious!

Here in Carlisle at 10:00am...it is snowing moderately to heavily with flake size fluctuating as well. The temperature is 10.0 degrees with a dew point of 6.8 degrees. During the past hour I received an additional 0.5" of snow, bringing the storm total thus far to 5.00" The facebook post from the NWS was really good. They created a video showing the sleet progression. For me it showed all snow through at least 6:00pm. He also said that noon time around the LSV will be a particularly heavy period.

Greater than inch per hour rates have arrived here (finally). Will still hold off until 10:00 for my official measurement. Temp still 10.0 degrees.

At 9:00am here in Carlisle it is snowing moderately to occasionally heavily. Fine flakes for the most part. The temperature is now 9.9 degrees. During the past hour I recorded an additional 1.0 inches of snow, bringing my storm total to 4.5". My NWS point forecast took on a somewhat negative tone, bringing in sleet at 3:00pm and continuing until 11:00pm. This seems to go against what the models were showing when Bliz posted back around 7:00am. Regardless, it does look beautiful out there, and I cannot believe it's snowing like this with a temperature of 9.9 degrees!

How are we doing with the status of your formula and any possible changeover (later)? You saw Horst mentioning some sleet mixing in down at Dulles.

At 8:00am here in Carlisle...the temperature is 10.2 degrees and the dew point is 7.0 degrees. Snow officially began at exactly 1:00am. It is currently snowing moderately with very fine flakes. I just measured 3.4" on the board which gives a storm total thus far of 3.4" This reminds me of both Jan 1996 and Feb 2003 with the snow falling and a temperature of 10 degrees. I haven't read any comments yet so I will go back to catch up. See you at 9.

At 10:15pm here in Carlisle...radar echoes show that virga has been over me for the past 30 minutes. Snow has not yet begun to fall. My current temperature is 14.5 degrees with a dew point of -1.7 degrees and a wet bulb of 11.5 degrees. This leaves the possibility of a small drop in the temperature once steady snow begins. I'd say I drop to around 13 degrees and then hang out there for at least several hours as long as the snow falls steadily and moderately. For my point-n-click the NWS has delayed the potential onset of sleet until after 6pm. They only mention the sleet potential in the overnight forecast, and even there they still say a possible mix with sleet until 1:00am. My range of accumulation has not changed from the morning forecast. They are still projecting a range of 9-17". They also are giving me a 50/50 chance of exceeding 12" (as noted in the earlier graphic). Let the fun begin!

Don't forget for the contest I predicted 19.59" of snow. Maybe I still have a shot at this?

I think the Jan 2016 storm would be the most recent. That's the storm with 35" I recorded. I know at the time the snow started early Saturday morning my temperature was 17 degrees. I can't remember precisely where the temp was at the end, but it couldn't have been any higher than the low 20's.

This looks infinitely better than 0Z last night. My point-n-click gives me a range of 12" - 20". My prediction of 19.59" is still inside the NWS range...lol

Next weekend's storm (only)...

I'll go with 19.59" (my birth year). I do measure all snowfall to the nearest tenth of an inch (0.10") which is the official way to measure snow.

The Jan 2016 storm produced the largest single storm total of my life with 35". There were multiple hours with 3"/hr along with at least one hour with 4" and a whopping 5" for one hour. Temp was in the mid to upper teens for the duration. That storm was preceded by the early Feb 2010 storms with 27" for the first storm and another 13" 3 days later for the second storm. 40" of snow was more than the total season average. The total snowfall for the 09-10 season was 70". There's been nothing close to that in the 25 years I've lived here. By the way, my low this morning was +1.8 degrees F. I failed to hit zero. This was the coldest low thus far this winter. I have a feeling there are going to be multiple sub-zero lows coming up in the next 2 weeks.

Wow...Do you see what just happened with this run vs. the 18z? The southern extent of the 12"+ line has moved over 150 miles north from the VA/NC line to now central Virginia. We definitely don't want much more north trend. The LSV is now close to some of the max numbers that were previously down in northern VA. Definitely will be interesting to see how the axis of heaviest continues to evolve over the next 72 hours.

Here in Carlisle (at 12:25am) my projected low temp of zero degrees upcoming around dawn is getting really close. I'm now down to +4.3 degrees F. I've been as low as +3.9 F. Temps with radiation nearly always fluctuate up and down.

Hey Guys... Take a look at this. These are the forecast temperatures at 7AM Tuesday morning. Some of these temps have to be historical. Atlanta is -18 F degrees. Nearly all of Kentucky and Tennessee is between -10 and -20 degrees. Places like Atlanta are likely going to experience a crippling ice storm, along with a ton of locations in the deep south. What if these people lose power during the ice storm and then have temperatures near 20 below zero before power is restored? I'm not trying to throw cold water (sorry for the poor pun) on this upcoming event. Up here regardless of the final snow totals, we will likely not lose power because of how light weight the powder is when the entire storm snows with temps in the low teens start to finish. Say some prayers for all of them.

All it takes is literally just 1" of snowcover combined with optimal radiational cooling to cause plummeting temperatures. My low this morning was 8.4 degrees. I have just surpassed that with a new low of 7.7 degrees, and tanking. My dew point is -1 degree F, so there's a decent shot at a low of zero tomorrow morning. My coldest minimum so far this season is +3.4 degrees which occurred back on December 16th. The two days prior saw a total of 1.3" of snow, which was the cover that morning.

The evolution of the GFS Thursday bomb is wild. The low initially comes up from the southwest and makes it nearly to State College. Then the brakes jam on, the low completely stops and proceeds to secondary due south to south central Virginia at which point it begins bombing, crashing from 997 to 983. I don't have to even look at the upper air maps to know that the low has to cut off and become stacked. It then jumps northeast to the tidewater area producing near blizzard conditions in DC/MD/DE with the low center over the northern most tip of Chesapeake Bay. So the cold air has completely encircled the low center as it brings the heavy snow up into south central / south eastern PA / then southern NJ, then northern NJ / NYC and onward to the northeast. Let's just say I did a little paraphrasing above, so I haven't described it as seen verbatim, but reasonably close. I can't think of a snowstorm that ever traversed the path the GFS is showing here. Instead of a secondary jumping to the coast, it jumps due south from our region and pops over south central Virginia before it slowly progresses NNE along the coast and even just inland over Maryland. Anyway, I took the time to do the PBP only because of the low's evolution and wild path it is shown to take. That caught my eye more than the snow, that is until accumulations around here had reached 12-20"...lol. Okay, that's it for me. (I hope you all know I don't believe it will likely pan out like this.) But it's just great to be tracking again, and even a potential monster later next week.

I just melted down my freezing rain and sleet. It came out to precisely 0.25" (liquid). There was no plain rain recorded throughout the entirety of the event as the temperature never went above 32.0 degrees. Ice-coated trees and grass are barely showing signs of melting with a current temperature of 33.6 degrees. Pavement and sidewalks are mostly ice-free now. They experienced the least accumulation of ice from the storm. It's next to impossible to come up with precise measurements of sleet versus freezing rain, although it seems obvious that the predominant form was from freezing rain. I am going to go with 0.3" of sleet (0.09" liquid) and 0.16" of freezing rain. The final few hours on either side of midnight were a "heavy" freezing drizzle. It looked like the tiniest snowflakes floating and flying around, but it wasn't snow. This precipitation brings my YTD total to 34.57" which represents an annual deficit of approximately 13.5" compared to the normal annual average of 48", which is the total I recorded during last year. I'll have the final yearly total after our last precip event coming up tomorrow evening into Monday afternoon.