MGorse

You guys are really digging deep into this!

2 minutes ago, LVwxHistorian said:

Bozo was referring to this observer not Mr. Chesco

Yes I know, and as I said I think we can do without the name calling.

5 minutes ago, LVwxHistorian said:

Have you looked up any of these storms in local newspapers?  - they usually mention totals.

And you're talking places far away, I'm talking about the nearest stations to this bozo!!

I think we can do without the name calling.

18 minutes ago, LVwxHistorian said:

Kennett square is 11 miles away and West Chester is 12 miles away!  

How could this guy ALWAYS record such high values -- 20" difference over these distances??  No way.  It doesn't take much to see that there is something seriously wrong here.

Elevations about the same: Coatesville 380', KS: 275', WC: 455'

I've contacted NCEI, hopefully they will get rid of these ridiculous totals -- it's a terrible contamination of the record

Good that you contacted NCEI. Hopefully they will be in touch with you on what they decide to do.

I first thought about the gradient that occurs from east to west across Chester County, as it can be significant. Have you contacted NCEI (formally NCDC) regarding this? Also, are there any available reports closer to Coatesville to better understand if those values are completely off the rails or not? As ChesoWX stated above, that location was a long standing COOP station. It would be interesting to see what the synoptic setup was during those dates, as I would imagine at least some included intense banding.

1 hour ago, LVwxHistorian said:

You didn't know you were going up against a real weather historian, did you, LOL!  

This drunken observer W.J. Gordon was around for the DEC 1909 too:  38 inches when Kennett Square had 23" and 21" at West Chester??!!  

Come on!!

Your arguments are crumbling.  

Hopefully NCDC will do something about this ridiculousness

I first thought about the gradient that occurs from east to west across Chester County, as it can be significant. Have you contacted NCEI (formally NCDC) regarding this? Also, are there any available reports closer to Coatesville to better understand if those values are completely off the rails or not?

This heat sucks! Dew points are awful. 

1 hour ago, Phil Connors said:

want some cheese with that wine?

What a first post you have there. LOL.

44 minutes ago, zenmsav6810 said:

 

While a bit pointed, I think Albedoman makes some good points. 

Okay, thanks. Lots of interesting information in his posts.

13 hours ago, Albedoman said:

MIke, regional favoritism thats all it is.  There are USGS digital gauges that Mt Holly has access too and were never used. Official Flood stages have not been set up at the newer  remote stream gauges In the Trexlertown area but I set my own flooding electronic notification thresholds up myself because my property borders the streams and I visually know the exact  depth in which the streams comes out of their  banks.  If I can do this, so can Mt Holly/USGS.  I did this  when we had the record flooding on the Little Lehigh last August when the  Lower Macungie Township municipal building actually was severely flooded and closed for a several months as the result of this historic  flooding event.  That flooding event was worse than Agnes or Floyd and that is saying a lot. The FEMA floodplain lines were violated by this event as well for the mapped 100 year storm event. 

All I am saying is the LV deserves much more attention by the regional forecasters in the regional discussion as almost a million people live in this MSMA area and well over 300,000 people in the Little Lehigh Watershed alone. Physical structural flooding damage in our area is not as predominate as in others in the MT Holly region as the Little Lehigh Creek has strict floodplain regulations( strictest in the state) and stormwater regulations for structures(again the strictest in the state) and structural damage is usually limited to open areas and road closures. However, flooding occurs constantly.  Mt. Holly cannot rely just on structural damage reports but also  rely on stream gauges. and precip hourly events. That is why USGS  set up digital/internet telemetry gauging stations in my backyard as this area floods way before the city of Allentown's Little Lehigh Creek gauges do since these new gauges are also located further upstream in the watershed and have digital rain gauges. 

 

You seem to know how NWS Mount Holly operates, which you are just making assumptions. We are certainly aware of the USGS gauges as they are a partner of the NWS. The two gauges on the Little Lehigh are not forecast points, meaning there are no actual forecasts issued for them. Not sure what else to tell you, other than voicing your concerns directly to NWS Mount Holly via email or a phone call instead of ranting about it here on a weather board. Can you pass along regarding what happened up there last Thursday-Friday? Feel free to PM me.

9 hours ago, The Iceman said:

Your post is spot on though. Really a poor showing by mt holly on Friday. 

Care to explain? 

21 hours ago, Albedoman said:

Another point, anything near an inch tonight will cause flooding again on the Little Lehigh Creek. Why is there no flash flood watch issued?  A radar out of NJ is not the only tool in the tool chest for forecasting possible flooding.  Look at the amount of precip recorded each hourover the last 24 hours on Thursday- Fridays storm at both airports.  What about the USGS digital  stream gauges?  They do exist. A flood advisory should have been issued after 12 hours of continuous rains. Two + inch rains floods creeks. That is a no brainer. Spring Creek Rd was closed all day in Lower Macungie Township from flooding. I guess the Lehigh Valley is not in the Mt. Holly area.  Forecasters  are too worried about discussing potential riptides to mention the two- three inches of rain that fell across the Lehigh Valley/ Quakertown area  on Thursday- Friday in their weather discussion. There is almost a million people that live in that particular forecast area. Priorities need to be reviewed.

Ummm, okay. Some of your post is just simply wrong, we care about our entire forecast area. Perhaps reports of flooding were not received at the office. Not to say that this as an excuse (I was not working Friday, so not sure what happened), but our KDIX radar was taken offline starting last Friday for scheduled work on the dome.

3 hours ago, snowwors2 said:

Yeh...Nothing since noon reports⁉️

The platform we use to log and issue reports went down for awhile today. Bad timing! 

3 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

Thanks. I recall you were at Mount Holly, at least you were in the past. 

I am still there. Getting closer to 20 years now. 

11 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

Welcome back. Are you still with the NWS?

Yes. 

1 hour ago, LibertyBell said:

Lee Goldberg just called out Upton, it was awesome.  He said Mt Holly handled it right with the Winter Storm Warning and Upton divided the storm into two different time periods (Thursday and Friday) when in fact most of the event will occur on Thursday.  He said better coordination is needed between the offices and what Upton did was "confusing."

 

Hmmm, interesting. 

1 minute ago, Birds~69 said:

I know some like seeing snow during daylight but this would be a much better overnight storm IMO....really much better.

 

Okay sure, but at least it will snow again. 

13 minutes ago, Birds~69 said:

Not at all.

Sure, put it in your weenie book then melts 15 mins later is not real snow. If it gives you a sense of stat accomplishment, carry on....

Alrighty then. 

The whole sun angle thing is for real, however some including myself have been burned by this before. Regarding this storm, through about 2 PM Thursday looks like when roads will be the worst but yeah once the snow intensity lessens roads should improve during peak daylight. Of course sleet does not melt as quick on roads so that is a different story. 

6 hours ago, BBasile said:

Yeah, that looks mostly like Mt Holly and State College weren't talking to each other.  Everything else looks pretty good.  

For the record we did talk last night. There was only 1-2 inches of snow difference between us. Once totals pass 8.0 the next range is plotted, which in this case is 8-12 inches. I did not want that displayed yet as people would gravitate to the 12 inches. We were well collaborated with our other offices. 

3 minutes ago, anthonyweather said:

Models aside, it IS significant ice probably through midnight-2am LV and poconos. CAD is never modeled correctly, and with the snow pack even more. It’s been hanging around 29-30 up this way. Roadways won’t be an issue, it’s the power lines and trees. IMO they are the cold spots that will build up.

 

ultimately this warmer solution is also setting Thursday to be colder, so win win?

Yup as the models tend to erode the CAD to fast especially in northeast PA and northwest NJ. 

2 minutes ago, penndotguy said:

That's Fair, TBH the way the forecasting has been this season with so many last minute shifts, you'd be changing warnings etc. every 4 hrs. 

Good point as we do not want the windshield wiper effect regarding amounts and headlines. 

7 minutes ago, The Iceman said:

Off topic but imo that is pretty asinine reasoning for mt holly to keep the ice storm warning. What is the point of having criteria to meet for the ice storm/winter storm warning if it can be just be issued based on what they believe potential impacts will be? Either it will likely meet the warning criteria and an ice storm warning should be issued or it will likely fall short of that criteria, such as this case, and a winter weather advisory should be issued instead. What's the point of having accumulation criteria to meet otherwise? Or they should just redo their warnings and advisories to include "potential impacts" and scrap accumulation based criteria. 

 

 

If impacts look to be high but amounts may end up falling short of warning criteria, then the warning can be maintained (impact based warnings). This helps to keep messaging consistent given the high impact aspect. Now I will say that based on the latest forecast, ice amounts are no where near warning criteria for ice for some areas but a warning remains in effect. Changes could be coming through the afternoon. From a messaging standpoint for this storm, it does look odd that some places are under an ice storm warning while nearby areas are under a winter weather advisory with very similar ice amounts forecast. I can see some confusion about that. 

1 hour ago, JTA66 said:

Philly just needs 4" for warning criteria,  so I could see them under a warning. But yeah...

Atmospheric memory/seasonal trend ftw! 

Warning criteria there is 5 inches for the 12 hour criteria (used to be 4 inches), and 7 inches for the 24 hour criteria.

Edit: Saw the map posted earlier.

41 minutes ago, Birds~69 said:

Glenn just now....I'll take it. Philly and the burbs may even be able to sneak in the 3-6" range w/a little more N movement.

I never get the overlapping ranges.