CarlislePaWx

19 minutes ago, Blizzard of 93 said:

There is a small yet decent little area of precip in western PA moving to the east.

Hopefully many of us wake up to at least a dusting or coating of snow tomorrow.

Funny, but every model you posted tonight has me close to or at 1.5".  Any snow is hard to believe at the moment with scattered cirrus filtering the just-past-full moon.  That allowed my temp to drop to 33.6 about 10 minutes ago, but it now has suddenly risen to 34.3.  That must mean the clouds are increasing.  A white coating would be nice to wake up to, but who wants to guess how long it lasts?  Current dew point is 29.1 and the wet bulb is 31.6.  That doesn't bode well for much evaporative cooling although it would certainly accumulate at 33 during the night. 

Low of 25 degrees here this morning around sunrise at 7:30am.  Racing upward now up to 36.

The models seem to be zeroing in on emphasizing Cumberland County as potentially being a jackpot.  Maybe instead of 1" I get 2"?  The best part, of course, is that nearly the entire event is during nighttime.  Hoping for a grass covering even if it's gone by Tuesday.

Well, I've already exceeded my forecast high of 49 degrees by almost 3 degrees.  It's 51.6 degrees with full sun and almost no wind.  A day or two ago the NWS high temp for today was 55.  They should have stuck with that...lol.  Oh, my low this morning was 38.1.

What another beautiful late December day with clear skies and light winds all day.  Started off the morning with a frosty low of 18.7 degrees and an afternoon high of 51.8 degrees and a mean of 35.3 degrees which is 4.4 degrees above normal for the date.  Normal high for tomorrow is 39.0 and normal low is 22.4.

Just after 2pm my temp has risen to 49.1, so hitting 50 seems very likely at this point with full sunshine.  It's 40 degrees warmer now than last Friday afternoon!

1 hour ago, Itstrainingtime said:

Very impressive- high today was 13.5, currently it's 12.9. I believe that is record shattering cold.

Though - Christmas eve 1983 was a little colder during the afternoon hours than today was. I left work at 5pm and it was 3 degrees after being in the upper 20s earlier in the morning.

Both air masses were/are historic, though the 1983 outbreak featured subzero temps here that this outbreak will not.

Matched your high here perfectly...13.5 degrees with a low this morning of 2.3 degrees and a mean of 7.9 degrees.  That's easily in the top 10 coldest days / means I've ever recorded.  Perhaps even nudging into the top 5 coldest.  Today's high was pretty darn close to the coldest daily high I have recorded since moving here 22 years ago.  There haven't been many sub-10 degree highs, for sure, in my lifetime.  Less than a handful. Right now I'm back down to 11.7 with a forecast low of 10.

42 minutes ago, Blizzard of 93 said:

Low of 2 in Marysville overnight 

10 minutes ago, anotherman said:

Low of 2 here as well.

Same for me here...  +2.3 degrees at 5:05am.  Was hoping to reach or break zero but not this time.  That leaves my coldest low temperature of the entire year at -0.6F back on January 22nd.  A combination of a decent snowpack along with radiational cooling produced that.  Remember we had that prolonged cold period for about 3 weeks following a decent snowstorm back in late December, I think.  Currently it has warmed back up to 6.6 degrees.

I'm down 20 degrees in the past 5.5 hours from 32 back at 9:50am to 12 now at 3:22.  Wind chills just dropping into the negative.  Incredible.

Well, the sun is coming out here now so I doubt I see any accumulating snow now.  The front came through here at 8:30am when the winds suddenly picked up dramatically.  Temp was 37 and didn't start dropping until 9:15.  It reached 32.0 at 9:52 and has now dropped almost 9 degrees more to 23.5.  I've had flurries on and off but that's been it.  Peak wind gust has been 25mph.  It's been way higher than that but I can't mount my anemometer in a better location, so winds are always muted.

I have patches of snow on the grass still surviving the overnight, but I don't think I can call it more than a trace although there are a few solid patches.  Regardless, at least I know now I'm guarantied to have snow on the ground Christmas morning.

About an hour ago a look at the Wunderground stations showed that all of Indiana and nearly all of Ohio were below zero.  Western Ohio was around 8 below.  Amazing stuff that I don't particularly want to experience. 

As midnight approaches it continues to rain moderately.  Temps have just spiked up 2.5 degrees in the past 15 minutes from 39.9 to 42.4.  They're catching up to the previous HRRR temp forecasts for these hours which were running nearly 5 degrees too high.

Looks like a total of 2.19" of liquid for today.  That consisted of 0.36" of melted snowfall of 3.4".  Then, 1.83" of rain has fallen over the past 11 hours.  I actually still have almost total snow cover on the grass, but it's heavily compacted and the grass is poking through.  If it doesn't rain too much more and the temps hold around here, I might still have at least patchy snowcover come morning before the arctic frontal snow showers arrive.  If a new inch falls it will fill back in the breaks to possibly give me back a solid base and an official white Christmas.

It will be fun tracking the crashing temps.  This is easily one of the most dramatic arctic frontal passages in over 30 years, especially given how temps are going to crash all day long despite any sunshine we have in the mid-day hours.  See you all in the morning.

The rain just keeps pouring outside as I listen to the water crashing down the leaders from the roof.  Temp now at the high for the day at 39.6.  Officially so far, 1.66" of total liquid for the day.  Snowfall was 0.36" and the rest 1.30" is rain.  The snow is still hanging on.  I still have a solid cover of at least an inch...maybe 1.5".  Hold on, my precious snowpack...hold on!

I wonder if the increasingly colder temps for later tomorrow will come to fruition?  We were only forecast to drop to +6F and now it looks like near zero.  That's hard to believe, but we'll see.  If we are down to zero that's definitely into wind chill warning territory with 40mph gusts.  YIkes.  Shades of Christmas 1980 more and more.

17 minutes ago, paweather said:

Sounds familiar in our worst winters 2020:

⚠️ SPECIAL WEATHER BULLETIN REGARDING CHRISTMAS EVE - PLEASE READ STATEMENT IN ITS ENTIRETY AND METICULOUSLY:

A powerful cold front on the lead of a very deep/cold trough will arrive during the evening on Thursday. This is NOT your typical cold front passage, and it will be both impactful and disruptive. First, this is NOT a snow event. Although snowflakes may mix at the tail end of precipitation in a few far NW/interior areas, the vast majority of it is a very mild RAIN. A low level jet at 700mb (approx. 10,000 feet AGL) will co-align itself parallel the incoming front/trough, increasing wind potential down to the surface.

APPROXIMATE TIMING: Rain showers arrive during the afternoon Thursday W-E, and becomes increasingly heavy during the evening. A potent thunderstorm squall line (with some lightning possible) traverses our region W-E from about 9pm-3am Thursday evening/early Friday AM. Once the squall line moves through, precipitation abruptly ends in the pre-dawn hours, and wind subsides significantly. A few flurries may linger on Christmas Day.

IMPACTS:

1) Heavy rain for most between 1.0-1.5" with higher amounts in areas of elevation exceeding 2.0" with added lift, combined with rapid snow melt will lead to flooding concerns Thursday PM/overnight.

2) Unusually high wind gusts picking up to 30-40mph+ mid to late afternoon Thursday, then increasing to 40-50mph+ during the evening. With the aforementioned squall line as it moves through W-E approximately 9pm-3am, 50-60mph+ gusts are likely with over 60mph peak gusts most likely to occur in far Eastern PA, Delaware and all of New Jersey. There is a HIGH concern for widespread power outages across the region Thursday evening/night unfortunately.

3) As the squall line passes and the front clears late Thursday night, a rapid temperature crash is expected from the mid to upper 50s prior to the front to below freezing in just a few hours time. Temperatures will continue to fall throughout the day on Christmas Day. This will lead to a FLASH FREEZE and all wet surfaces will become ice, including roadways, sidewalks, and all exposed surfaces.

Given the very poor and worst possible timing of the holiday, increased attention and emphasis is placed on this particular event. Please have a plan in place to adapt to changing conditions with flooding, high winds/increased power outage potential, and the flash freeze that follows.

Forecaster: Martrich 22DEC1500z

Where did this forecast come from?  Who issued it and what areas were covered?  Eastern PA and NJ?

It's been raining lightly here for the past several hours.  Temp has very slowly risen to current 33.4 degrees.  Looks like I've picked up about 0.10" of rain since the changeover.  Had total of 3.4" of snow with 0.36" of liquid for nearly perfect 10:1.  Snow is definitely showing signs of compacting, but only 1.5 degrees above freezing slows down the melting a lot.  We'll see about later.  There's still 3" on the ground of increasingly wet snow.

Had snow flake size and intensity of all varieties during the past hour.  It mostly is still oscillating between light and moderate.  The intensity was enough to deliver an additional 0.5" to the storm total giving me 3.3" total so far.  As I type this the intensity is picking back up again to moderate and enough to accumulate a little bit more.  The negating factor now is the temperature which has risen to 31.6 degrees.  I'm hearing a tiny bit of melting coming down through the leaders of my gutters.  I have now officially exceeded the high end amount that NWS had forecast for me (by 0.3" lol).  I really hope I can hold on to at least enough that has some white on the ground after the rain ends overnight.  Perhaps we'll be treated to more than a dusting via the cold frontal passage tomorrow morning?

Hey Guys.  Well, the hour between 8:15 and 9:15 was just glorious with very heavy snow >1" per hour rates.  It's just so beautiful out there with snow falling and no wind.  In the last 30 minutes it has diminished to light snow, but all pure snow with no mix (yet).  Snowboard is measuring just under 3" at 2.8" officially.  I haven't looked yet at any radars so I don't know if anything more of significance is coming (snow-wise).  I wonder if it will all be gone by tomorrow morning?  If the temp stays close to 35 with the heavy rain, it will take a while to destroy it.  I shot about 6 minutes of video during the heavy part so I can play it back on my TV Christmas morning when it's 8 degrees.  As intense as the cold and wind are going to be (mostly Christmas Eve), it won't come close to Christmas Day 1980 when temps did not get out of the mid single digits after having dropped to -2F with wind gusts of 30+mph created wind chills of 55 below!  That was before the NWS completely revised the official wind chill charts.

As I am about to submit this the temp has risen to 30.2 degrees and the snow is picking back up again, approaching moderate.  Should be able to reach 3" before the changeover.

6 minutes ago, Blizzard of 93 said:

0z Canadian looks very similar to the GFS

I think LSV criteria for WWA for snow is 2-4" range.  5"+ is WSW criteria.  Temp has been hovering just below and above 26 degrees with 26.4 right now.

30 minutes ago, Blizzard of 93 said:

I think me, you, @CarlislePaWx & @canderson could be in a good spot tomorrow am!

Hey I just got a chance to see my NWS forecast and it went from less than half an inch this morning to now one to three inches.  All those short range models showed cumberland county receiving anywhere from 3 to 5 inches.  Nice to see some agreement now from NWS for the greater potential.

I'm down to 27.5 and dropping.  Dew point is 22 and wet bulb is 25.9.  So when the precip begins (snow), there won't be much evaporational cooling possible.

1 minute ago, Bubbler86 said:

Thanks @CarlislePaWx, I was curious to see if at least one model was showing plus 50 for the gusts.  Windy but not crazy windy compared to the last few years.   I do not have any subscriptions to model sites and none of the ones I used let me see the gust panels. 

No Prob.  I never cancelled my monthly subs back in May and just let it keep going.  They've got a flash sale going on right now for an annual sub 20% off $99, so $79 for a year.  That will save me $40 over 12 monthly payments.

The regular and hi res Euro don't provide 10M winds at all, which was quite surprising.  

Hi res NAM just finished running so here's it's pre and post max gusts:

PRE:

POST:  (Every hourly panel after this one has max gusts in the 30's)

Here's the strongest gust panel from after the front has cleared our area (it's marginally higher at 7am just before the front with 35mph at MDT):

@canderson@Bubbler86Here 'ya go with the gust panel...

12Z NAM max gust panel of entire run (occurs 7pm Thursday in the warm sector.  Post front panels all considerably lower)

Hey guys...I've been entertaining myself looking at the 0Z GFS data.  There's so much interesting stuff to see with this storm.  The run keeps getting colder Friday afternoon and evening with temps in the 40's at 7AM as the front approaches (and passes through MDT between 9 and 10AM) crashing all the way down to 5 to 10 degrees by 7pm.  Wind chills drop below zero by mid afternoon, reaching their coldest of between 10 and 15 BELOW for LSV straight through Saturday afternoon, and do not rise above zero F until Sunday afternoon.  I don't know if I can remember experiencing below zero wind chills continuously for 36+ hours before.

Finally, as you will see below in this snow map, there is an explosion of snow between MDT and LNS behind the cold front that delivers 9 inches to MDT and 6" to LNS with western Lanco exceeding 10" in spots.  This is using Kuchera which given the frigid temps would likely reflect amounts more accurately.  I know the map will change again in 6 hours, but it's still pretty neat to look at potential...

2 hours ago, Itstrainingtime said:

I remember your request, and I am only posting about weather now. As I said last week, I was largely responsible and apologize again for that.

Hey, please, no apologies are necessary!!  I never considered you to be more than any other sports poster.  The first time I made that suggestion was at least a year ago, or maybe two.  While I really don't get bent out of shape about sports posts I honestly do not understand the reluctance of anyone in creating a sports and/or banter thread.  Last time I looked, there were no posting minimums that are in effect here, are there?  Who cares if the thread only gets posts a few times per week?  What difference should that make as to the validity of such a thread?  (I'm not pointing anything I'm saying at you, even if it might look that way.  My comments are directed to our subforum as a whole).  Finally, it's incredibly easy to keep one tab opened to our weather page AND keep a second tab open to the banter page.  It takes one second to switch between the two and to refresh the page.)

I'd like to chime in here with the other recent posters to say that I love all the posts from @Blizzard of 93.  It's funny but it seems like once every winter our subforum goes through an emotionally driven "episode" like we all witnessed this morning.  Ultimately we all always "make up" and move on.  Let's hope this time it's the same.

I know there is at least one other poster here that isn't in to sports.  For the most part, neither am I.  My only very tiny gripe is that I wish the discussions in this specific forum could be limited to weather-related posts primarily.  Of course, the last time I brought this up and suggested that a separate banter thread be created to cover all other topics besides weather, I was pretty quickly dismissed.  I'll say it again, why can't we have a separate banter thread for anything else but weather?  If you want to, create a sports-only banter thread so all sports fans know where to go to discuss their favorite teams/players.  If it costed money to create and maintain any additional threads, well then I might look at this differently.  But, threads are free!  Think about it, please? 

11 minutes ago, Itstrainingtime said:

We'll see-I'm not super enthused right now.

This will probably enthuse you...GFS predicting 52 degrees when the ball/pickle/strawberry drops at midnight, followed by an enthusiastically warm high temp of 63 degrees that afternoon.

Currently, the temp continues to hold rock steady at 32.2 degrees.  High temp so far today has been 32.4.  That wonderful period of pure snow was very short-lived, however.  I'm estimating between 0.2" and 0.3" of snowfall accumulation.  When the snow stopped I went back to sleet, with perhaps a little rain mixed in.