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Central PA and The Fringes - February 2014 Part II


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I'm right with you. No idea why but have a good feeling. Blinded by yesterday's overperformer lol

 

Man that RAP has the sleet/snow line somewhere between the two of us. Just gonna have to wait and see how this is going to pan out. Pretty confident the majority of precip for us is going to be of the snow/sleet variety... and that we'll either get 2-4 inches of snow and then get hammered by sleet at the height of the storm or get hammered by 6-8 inches of snow outright and mix when the precip lightens. Then tack on a glaze of light ZR at the end of either scenario. We're definitely going to be in the business of glacier building with this event.

 

Starting to feel that the setup/track of this storm is going to yield an area of significant sleet somewhere in central or south central PA. I would define like 1-2" as a pretty significant dose of sleet. The transfer of the low just south of PA (or maybe just getting into SW PA coupled with solid CAD anchored in is going keep the warming aloft elevated (generally between 850mb-700mb) as well as mitigated some. 925mb level stays very cold in the central counties. Thus potential is there for a prolonged sleet fest. 

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Wth... We've over performed on the last several of these I'm sticking with 6 to 8 and going down with the ship!! Lol

Good call Captain!

^^^ I'll go down with the ship too. 6 to 8" followed by light sleet is my final call for UNV.

Maybe I am naive, but sleet does NOT "always" happen here. December 2012 was a Miller B with 8.5" of snow, and December 2013 featured another Miller B with 6" of snow. Both major snows were followed by light sleet.

Looking at models now is just a fool's-game. Models are "always" wrong. Whatever is going to happen will happen, and it's all completely outside our control.

I agree show time is 8 hrs away!!
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Holy crap that's like a 1" QPF bullseye. Probably would be 2-4 inches of sleet in the light green, yellow, and orange assuming 3-4:1 ratios. I've only personally seen one event in the late 90s that delivered that kind of sleet here. Can't remember exactly how much but at least a few inches and its really hard to deal with or drive in. Some roads that have steep embankments immediately adjacent had feet of sleet on them because the sleet would roll down. Some of those piles lasted halfway through April too haha. 

I think that was the storm I refered to last nigh when I was at my parents cabin at Raystown. Huntingdon Co. Front end loaders needed to clear the road in steep embankment areas.

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Eric Horst seems rather bullish on his amounts for the northern tier still and it was posted after 1 (so he got to see the noon guidance) Here is his map https://twitter.com/MUweather/status/430764185085939712/photo/1

 

He has always been a conservative forecaster but his amounts are usually pretty close. The part about significant ICE accumulation for Lancaster is what has me troubled. Again FREEZING RAIN is not good, but lots of FREEZING RAIN is very bad and destructive.

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Eric Horst seems rather bullish on his amounts for the northern tier still and it was posted after 1 (so he got to see the noon guidance) Here is his map https://twitter.com/MUweather/status/430764185085939712/photo/1

 

He has always been a conservative forecaster but his amounts are usually pretty close. The part about significant ICE accumulation for Lancaster is what has me troubled. Again FREEZING RAIN is not good, but lots of FREEZING RAIN is very bad and destructive.

 

Just put the disco out 30min ago.

http://snowball.millersville.edu/~cws/SpecialWeatherDiscussion.html

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Several things to keep in mind, the models have no knowledge of being right or wrong. I am sure that someone in the NWS or the model

Each model is programmed differently so that they  run differently, if multiple models pick up on something using different algorithms,  then  they are seeing something to note.

Most models seem to over do precipitation. NWS Mets have told me that that they usually reduce  qpf by 1/3.  ( I teach Comp Sci at a local school)

 

Now on to this situation: I think the NWS is using climatology instead of models to draw the FR rain/snow line. I have seen a big disconnect between NWS and TV mets. I think the issue is that no one knows where that line sets up. that will determine the amounts of the snow.

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Why does that ice slide have me in .75"+. lol

 

heck it has quite a few areas in the .75+ including mine (Lancaster). It is always interesting to see how each weather service office puts down amounts and then how different it is from one county to the adjacent county. I think Eastern you had shown that during yesterday's storm that LWX had higher amounts than CTP. So if reviewing CTP I am getting .1-.25 ice but if looking here I am getting possibly .75+. Just interesting to see how offices think even adjacent ones.

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I certainly hope that wpc map is more right than some of the other reports we have been listening to.  For the majority of us there is a 60% probability that we do NOT see over 0.25" of ice accretion.  So, the odds are stacked slightly in our favor against a major/crippling ice storm.

 

However, that being said, like Sauss said earlier this morning...the majority of yesterday's snowfall accumulations on the trees is actually still on the trees as of 2:40pm.  Temps appear to be cresting right around 30 degrees which isn't helping much in the overall melting process.  The second concern is we have had almost no wind since the start of yesterday's storm right through to the present.  When I went outside a bit earlier to knock some of the snow off of one of my delicate shrubs I discovered that the snow had frozen into massive clumps that would not easily come off.  Temps were in the teens and even single digits last night which took all of the very high moisture content snow and turned all of it into frozen, sticky ice blocks.

 

So, regardless of what form the precipitation takes tonight, with temps remaining below freezing everything stuck on all the trees is going to act like a magnet to allow either the snow or the freezing rain to immediately accumulate/accrete, progressively weighing down everything and compounding/magnifying the severity of the potential damage.

 

I am definitely not a hypester, however, I believe that an incredible amount of tree destruction and power line damage may develop throughout the night and into tomorrow morning.  I pray that the liquid from the storm becomes less, especially for us in the southern half of the state.

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I certainly hope that wpc map is more right than some of the other reports we have been listening to. For the majority of us there is a 60% probability that we do NOT see over 0.25" of ice accretion. So, the odds are stacked slightly in our favor against a major/crippling ice storm.

However, that being said, like Sauss said earlier this morning...the majority of yesterday's snowfall accumulations on the trees is actually still on the trees as of 2:40pm. Temps appear to be cresting right around 30 degrees which isn't helping much in the overall melting process. The second concern is we have had almost no wind since the start of yesterday's storm right through to the present. When I went outside a bit earlier to knock some of the snow off of one of my delicate shrubs I discovered that the snow had frozen into massive clumps that would not easily come off. Temps were in the teens and even single digits last night which took all of the very high moisture content snow and turned all of it into frozen, sticky ice blocks.

So, regardless of what form the precipitation takes tonight, with temps remaining below freezing everything stuck on all the trees is going to act like a magnet to allow either the snow or the freezing rain to immediately accumulate/accrete, progressively weighing down everything and compounding/magnifying the severity of the potential damage.

I am definitely not a hypester, however, I believe that an incredible amount of tree destruction and power line damage may develop throughout the night and into tomorrow morning. I pray that the liquid from the storm becomes less, especially for us in the southern half of the state.

This may sound like a stupid question, but do you believe there will be any areas in the LSV (Lancaster County, specifically) that DO NOT lose power? Normally that would be a no-brainer, but I believe it is a legitimate question with all the heavy wet snow on the trees right now.
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This may sound like a stupid question, but do you believe there will be any areas in the LSV (Lancaster County, specifically) that DO NOT lose power? Normally that would be a no-brainer, but I believe it is a legitimate question with all the heavy wet snow on the trees right now.

A lot of areas (including mine) have underground utilities which might help.

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I certainly hope that wpc map is more right than some of the other reports we have been listening to.  For the majority of us there is a 60% probability that we do NOT see over 0.25" of ice accretion.  So, the odds are stacked slightly in our favor against a major/crippling ice storm.

 

However, that being said, like Sauss said earlier this morning...the majority of yesterday's snowfall accumulations on the trees is actually still on the trees as of 2:40pm.  Temps appear to be cresting right around 30 degrees which isn't helping much in the overall melting process.  The second concern is we have had almost no wind since the start of yesterday's storm right through to the present.  When I went outside a bit earlier to knock some of the snow off of one of my delicate shrubs I discovered that the snow had frozen into massive clumps that would not easily come off.  Temps were in the teens and even single digits last night which took all of the very high moisture content snow and turned all of it into frozen, sticky ice blocks.

 

So, regardless of what form the precipitation takes tonight, with temps remaining below freezing everything stuck on all the trees is going to act like a magnet to allow either the snow or the freezing rain to immediately accumulate/accrete, progressively weighing down everything and compounding/magnifying the severity of the potential damage.

 

I am definitely not a hypester, however, I believe that an incredible amount of tree destruction and power line damage may develop throughout the night and into tomorrow morning.  I pray that the liquid from the storm becomes less, especially for us in the southern half of the state.

my thoughts are that some southern areas that do end up more rain than sleet may see .50" rain but only .1-.2" ice because of the rainfall rates being too high for good accretion with temps near 30...

 

I think there will be some power outages and trees down but more scattered than widespread

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