CoralRed

The oranges and reds are coming to get us. Look at the lineup of dots; it makes me think of two armies but we have no defense so I guess it is a bloodless takeover not a battle. I looked all the way out west and it seems all the dots are under 200 this time so we must consider ourselves lucky. Just in the last 10 minutes, Williamsport's dot went from 37 to 44 and from green to yellow.

2:59a: We seem to be done for now. I checked two weather stations on Williamsport. They showed totals of just about an inch since Saturday night. Weather Service says Montoursville Airport five miles away got 3.29 in last six hours. It seems like many other nearby places got lots more than we did. I couldn't figure out earlier why we were getting all these warnings and alerts when we were getting rain but nothing torrential and the curtains didn't move so little wind.

There is a Flood Warning until 7:30a. I am glad we got some rain but happy we didn't get too much at once.

* WHERE...A portion of central Pennsylvania, including the following counties, Lycoming, Montour, Northumberland, Sullivan and Union.

* IMPACTS...Flooding of rivers, creeks, streams, and other low-lying and flood-prone locations is imminent or occurring. Streams
continue to rise due to excess runoff from earlier rainfall.

* ADDITIONAL DETAILS...
- At 136 AM EDT, Doppler radar and automated rain gauges
indicated heavy rain due to showers and thunderstorms.
Flooding is ongoing in portions of the warned area. Between 3
and 5 inches of rain have fallen.
- Additional rainfall amounts up to 1 inch are possible in the
warned area.

21 minutes ago, canderson said:

GUYS 

I found a place that makes mead across from a Ukrainian church - and they play 30 year old WWF matches!

Pittsburgh isn’t that bad aside from the insane hills

 

I remember mead from stuff I read in college. What does it taste like? It is wine, isn't it? As I recall, the old beers were very low alcohol because people drank them a lot due to water so bad. Does mead pack any kind of punch?

I can't believe I am talking about mead!

1:35am Update. I checked two weather stations for Williamsport and both said we had .39 of rain. I didn't think we even made the .33 predicted. The storms are continuing northeast so a lot of Lycoming County will end up with something. Let's keep that rain coming!

So will we get this unexpected but now predicted .33 of rain here in Williamsport? We got a Severe Thunderstorm Warning but we are not named in it; closest place is Jersey Shore, 16 miles away. 

I will come back and update about what looks to me like a sure thing 

It looks like we here in Williamsport are done with the rain that has been coming down in the northern half of the state off and on for hours. We received .42.

I saw this post on Twitter from the guy who covers fires. He did a podcast that covers, among other things, the question: "The U.S. sends a massive resource order to Canada. Are the U.S. resources left enough to cover the coming fire season?" 

Usually the international help for other countries like us is a question of firefighters, not resources. I sure hope we didn't send too much up there. I have been very surprised and relieved that we haven't had more fires, considering we get hotter and Canada's fires have been an out of control mess for over a month. Ocean temps are elevated so God knows what hurricane season will bring as it really starts to get going in another month.

Our weather may soon become too interesting.

https://twitter.com/HotshotWake/status/1679169290988142594

1 hour ago, Jns2183 said:

How are you YTD vs normal

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk
 

Sorry I cannot tell you. I know we were down and that unlike others here for the past month or so, we have had not had very much. We are not in a crisis of course but this is the fourth summer we have had noticeably more sunny days and less rain and grey skies than normal  in Williamsport. That Canadian smoke turned many sunny days this past month to hazy or worse doesn't change our real weather, it just covers it up.

I hardly ever carry my umbrella anymore. Part of that is me walking less and taking bus more but still, it is so strange.

23 minutes ago, canderson said:

Ugh I am sorry - was hoping this was a forum wide pleaser 

That's the way it goes sometimes. I am just glad we got what we did. It is funny to think as I wrote early this morning that we literally started out strong with a bang -- from nothing to thunder and good rain -- and went downhill after that when others got so much.

1 hour ago, canderson said:

Everyone got goods right? No one mixed out much? I mean some got way cray amounts but everyone got at least 1”? 

Not me up here in Williamsport. Just checked and before noon Montoursville Airport is down for .45 and for afternoon .08. But I knew we didn't get that much this morning and I checked two Williamsport weather stations on Wunderground: .11 and .16 earlier this afternoon before my nap. 

So about .5 for Montoursville and .25 for us five miles away, assuming we also got the .08. 

Whatever else we get isn't going to make much difference. Lots of days have rain in 10 day forecast, two about .5 so farmers have something to look forward to.

Started off with a bang: Suddenly realized the 4:30a silence of Williamsport had been replaced with both rain and thunder. Funny 11:00p precip map for Channel 16 showed only only location getting more than one inch yet weather guy  mentioned possibility of several inches as he discussed updated models and lower amounts than predicted earlier.

Once again I feel I have no idea really what we will end up getting. At least it won't be nothing this time. Things will be off and on until 11a then all day until around midnight according to Wunderground hourly. 

Williamsport finally got lucky with storms. Thunder and lightening --  lightening didn't get too close. 1.23 first hour, .09 second hour between 9-11p for a total of 1.32. 

And I will brag but save you details: I was chatting with Comcast agent during much of the worse. Took forever since agents have to go back and forth between more than one customer, with 10-15 minute pauses. Never experienced such a thing before.

More rain tomorrow and Sunday. Hope it really happens.

11:05p: Weather guy at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton now says same thing as yesterday and earlier today about things getting better as in not a problem anymore but added at the end number should be about 100 tomorrow. He said it was 120 over there now. That is not going back to normal and they (and we) are supposed to be getting rain which should help but evidently not much.

If I had family members with asthma and other lung problems this smoky air along with the uncertainty would really be driving me nuts. I am lucky I can just be annoyed and wonder how this is effecting my nasal allergies without really worrying.

50 minutes ago, canderson said:

There are more than 500 individual fires spread across the 2nd largest country on earth and all in area without roads so zero access. 9 million hectares have burned. 

Only thing that can help is rain - which isn’t availability apparently. 

The article mentions controlled burning and thinning too. When all those people died out in California awhile back there was a lot of talk about lack of controlled burning there. I realize now I haven't heard much about controlled burning since then. I guess it often ends up being an argument with experts calling for it and fearful nearby residents saying no. And I suppose the drier it is, the more reluctant residents are -- but also fires can be that much worse then too.

So many questions, and then add possible climate change effects into the mix and that makes everything even more complicated.

1. I am officially discouraged and frankly more than a bit worried about the smoky air in our future. According to my scrawled notes for the 3 stations around Williamsport, we were

156-157-160 Friday at 6:06a

115-122-131 today at 2:26p

149-144-152 today at 9:03p

There were no air quality notices for us today, things were supposed to go down -- actually yesterday but it got extended -- but here we are, more or less stuck at same levels for day and a half. I can only hope this time the promises on TV weather tonight that smoke will be pushed out will finally come true.

2. I just saw this at CNN.com and am not happy at all. It seems Canada is not very good on fire management and underfunds it too. Pot calling kettle black I know -- but our smoke usually does not go into other countries.

This jumped out at me. Does this mean the smoke we are getting is also far more dense and has much more pollution than ordinary smoke? Also that it seems we are going to keep getting this year after year. Not every year necessarily, granted, but that we will have this stuff coming in off and on indefinitely. 

"Most of Canada is covered by boreal forest, the world’s largest and most intact biome. The ecosystem with trees like spruce, pine, and fir makes up about one-third of all forests on the planet."

...

"Boreal forests are carbon dense, releasing 10 to 20 times more planet-heating carbon pollution for each unit of area burned by wildfires than other ecosystems, according to a 2022 study published in the journal Science Advances. "

Thoughts?

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/07/01/us/canada-wildfire-smoke-us-air-quality/index.html

Just checked and Williamsport vicinity is definitely willing the booby prize for bad air in PA. At 11:22p we were 259-268-274. Milton is 196, Bloomsberg area is 129-132-141. That was a real surge. Earlier tonight it was just over 150. As I recall, earlier this month we just had 2 Purple Air machines reporting, Milton had none and Bloomsberg had 2. So the bad air is helping Purple Air's business.

I am so glad someone here passed on the link for them and Pivotal for the smoky air prediction map. It was cool enough for me to close all windows a little while ago, thank goodness.

Williamsport itself and not just nearby locations finally got about an inch and a half of rain. Maybe since we got this, we can actually get some more of the rain predicted to come our way. 

On the other hand I would be happy not to get the smoke coming down from Canada into the West which is supposed to eventually hit NYC. But I can't see how we can escape when we are between Ohio and NYC. 

2 hours ago, TheDreamTraveler said:

I've been super interested in how powerful this El Nino gets since we might get a Super El Nino that rivals 2015-2016. Should be interesting

"And to get an idea of just how massive the developing El Niño could be, the previous record high super El Niño peaked at 2.6°C in November/December of 2015. The 1997 El Niño peaked at 2.4°C. And this one is now modelled by the BoM to break 3.0°C."

Jesus christ lol

As I just said here the other day, I am interested in weather but I am no weenie. But between this, the ice reductions in Arctic & Antarctica & the smoke, I am now seeing a lot more professors & smart ppl appearing to be having fits on the inside while trying to stay calm on the outside, expressing worry and even screaming. I have followed a few so that is one reason I see more but still.... I do not like the trends even though there is so much I do not personally really understand. Just keeping up with basics a challenge.

I am so grateful we are in PA where the extremes are far less extreme than in many other places.

Oh yeah, you may be interested in something else from my Twitter reading today. I saw that we, Australia and I think it was Japan have different rules about El Ninos. We are the ones who make it easier to declare El Nino conditions than Australia. Another thing to think about here.

I just saw this on Twitter about El Nino and thought people would be interested: 

"Wow!

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has had both the most extreme and most accurate forecasts of the developing El Niño. But this forecast, just released, is so extreme it's hard to believe I'm seeing it.

3.0°C by October. 

3.2°C by November."

Chart at link 

https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1671213699875622914?s=20

Williamsport is not doing so well with air. It is up to 151 and in the red zone. I could smell the smoke very faintly outside just now. I thought we would need more than 151 for that.

On rain, we are supposed to have some every day from Thursday-next Tuesday, two days with about half an inch for a total of around 2". I hope so but I am skeptical we will see all that given the amount of disappointments we have had.

I also just looked at my screenshots for the days we had such awful air. I can hardly believe we got that bad, but we did. 

2 hours ago, Wmsptwx said:

We need rain bad

We sure do. I wonder when we will get more than a bit here and there, and not just once? Others to our east and south have in the past few weeks but not us. Some thunderstorms would help, too. I see temps are going up which will I assume will dry out the soil even faster. 

What a surprise. We were only 62 around noon and are still only 68 at Montoursville Airport. I am used to temperatures being lower than average now. It will be a shock to my system when we get normal sticky summer weather. In the meantime, I am really enjoying what we have. I am sorry about the drought but am more than ready to enjoy lots more sunny days for as long as they last.

11 minutes ago, Jns2183 said:

My brother's friend in India measured with legit scientific instruments 97 with dew point 89 this last month. Heat index at 140

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I was just thinking today how glad I was that the sticky heat wasn't here yet and how I wished we could skip it this year. Just the thought of a 149 heat index makes me feel weak. I didn't know it went that high.

I guess I have to be grateful to be here in good old Williamsport.

So what is this about more smoke? I just caught the end of the weather out of Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, so I guess maybe some will not get it. Guy said nothing hazardous this time. Williamsport is a very nice low PM32 at 7:45p and I hate to think it will be much higher soon.

Another smoke question: Does anyone has a good site and/or link for Canadian smoke maps? I cannot believe I am asking this -- I am interested in weather but no weenie -- but here I am, wanting to be able to check on Canadian smoke. 

Maybe someday we will look back and remember these little changes in habits we would not have made on our own as signs of worsening climate change. I hope not but it's possible.

I was surprised to see it was 73 at 5:20a and no wonder. 

Overnight

Isolated showers. Cloudy, with a low around 63. Southeast wind around 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.

Monday

Showers likely, then showers and possibly a thunderstorm after noon. High near 75. Southeast wind 13 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 22 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New rainfall amounts between a half and three quarters of an inch possible.

I checked and Montoursville Airport has ranged between 75 and 72 since midnight. I wonder why NWS didn't update their forecast all night when it was so off. So we will be in 70s all of today until later this evening. 

Forkyfork, a met over at the NYC subforum posted a link to a tweet by someone who follows wildfires, The Hotshot Wake Up. He quotes a forest firefighter in Canada who says they often do nothing about the huge boreal fires in Canada. The firefighter says it's the same thing in Alaska and Siberia: let it burn is often the decision. Firefighter also says:

"The only thing that is going to put out this fire out and many across the country is winter, 5 months from now. It’s going to be a long, smoky summer for everyone. You have a wide reach, it would be great if you can help people understand these dynamics in the Canadian wildfire scene when they’re bitching about the smoke."

This is obviously not what we want to hear. We usually do not get their smoke so I wonder why he thinks "everyone" will this year. I will follow him to see what else he has to say in the future.

https://twitter.com/HotshotWake/status/1666939633890934784?s=20