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Central PA - February 2017


MAG5035

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4 minutes ago, canderson said:

Get your technical mumbo jumbo outta here - it's going south. ;)

I am beginning to think MDT very well might end this year with less than 8" snow; long range doesn't look hot for storms coming through here.

I think MDT will get over 12" this year. The LR pattern doesn't scream big storm potential, but the prospects of +PNA setup with falling heights in the east will mean a better shot at clippers. I think MDT can cash in on a few of those. Plus, taking a look at the weeklies shows some systems cutting under the ridge axis out west, so there will be potential for a southern wave, but of course with a split flow pattern, there will always be a threat of swing and misses. February is the start of shortened wave lengths, so there will be more chances for phasing, but that is all about luck and timing. We shall see. I'd rather be where you are compared to where I live for snow lol

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5 minutes ago, MillvilleWx said:

I think MDT will get over 12" this year. The LR pattern doesn't scream big storm potential, but the prospects of +PNA setup with falling heights in the east will mean a better shot at clippers. I think MDT can cash in on a few of those. Plus, taking a look at the weeklies shows some systems cutting under the ridge axis out west, so there will be potential for a southern wave, but of course with a split flow pattern, there will always be a threat of swing and misses. February is the start of shortened wave lengths, so there will be more chances for phasing, but that is all about luck and timing. We shall see. I'd rather be where you are compared to where I live for snow lol

I saw a couple good signs in the LR with an MJO pulse finally appearing after spending most of the last month or so in the circle.. pretty well agreed upon amongst the models to go into Phase 1... which is supportive of cold over the eastern conus. Also been some rumblings about the stratosphere and forecasts do show perturbation of the polar vortex. Both of these factors come with a lag time of course. I would say the cold should come back to the US toward the end of the month but it may not necessarily be our end of the country to start. GFS/Euro show lots of low heights developing in the western US all the way up through Alaska in the day 6-10 timeframe.. which eventually starts to undercut the responding very high heights over the eastern US/eastern Canada. 12z Euro is out of it's mind by D10, have you seen the 500 height anomalies? A blocking 570dm (!!!) height center over Hudson Bay with low heights undercutting.

ecmwfued-hgt--namericawide-240-A-500hgtanom.png

Obviously, it doesn't have to be quite as extreme as that solution.. but I do think a key to getting the storm pattern to work in our favor this winter is going to have to come from a pattern such as this one where we have NAO blocking or high heights in Canada to suppress the storm pattern. I'm beginning to think that the PNA is going to generally remain in it's negative phase for the foreseeable future.. perhaps neutralizing but I just don't see a reversal to any kind of commanding PNA ridge. SSTs in the north Pac are way different than the last few years with a large area of below average of temps all the way from east Asia to the US west coast. It's probably a factor in this extremely active storm track that's been slamming the west. This storm track is also quite supressed.. usually a winter with traditional La Nina tendencies (I know that we're working more of an ENSO neutral) would favor the Pac NW moreso than California and some of the intermountain west states east of there (NV,UT,CO, etc). A lot of these storms have been going NW of here since there has been southeast ridging without any downstream or over the top blocking. I could see how we could suddenly get buried on the regular if all these storms and associated moisture start undercutting all the way across the country. It's going to be interesting to see what happens getting towards February. 

anomnight.1.12.2017.gif

   

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3 minutes ago, MAG5035 said:

I saw a couple good signs in the LR with an MJO pulse finally appearing after spending most of the last month or so in the circle.. pretty well agreed upon amongst the models to go into Phase 1... which is supportive of cold over the eastern conus. Also been some rumblings about the stratosphere and forecasts do show perturbation of the polar vortex. Both of these factors come with a lag time of course. I would say the cold should come back to the US toward the end of the month but it may not necessarily be our end of the country to start. GFS/Euro show lots of low heights developing in the western US all the way up through Alaska in the day 6-10 timeframe.. which eventually starts to undercut the responding very high heights over the eastern US/eastern Canada. 12z Euro is out of it's mind by D10, have you seen the 500 height anomalies? A blocking 570dm (!!!) height center over Hudson Bay with low heights undercutting.

ecmwfued-hgt--namericawide-240-A-500hgtanom.png

Obviously, it doesn't have to be quite as extreme as that solution.. but I do think a key to getting the storm pattern to work in our favor this winter is going to have to come from a pattern such as this one where we have NAO blocking or high heights in Canada to suppress the storm pattern. I'm beginning to think that the PNA is going to generally remain in it's negative phase for the foreseeable future.. perhaps neutralizing but I just don't see a reversal to any kind of commanding PNA ridge. SSTs in the north Pac are way different than the last few years with a large area of below average of temps all the way from east Asia to the US west coast. It's probably a factor in this extremely active storm track that's been slamming the west. This storm track is also quite supressed.. usually a winter with traditional La Nina tendencies (I know that we're working more of an ENSO neutral) would favor the Pac NW moreso than California and some of the intermountain west states east of there (NV,UT,CO, etc). A lot of these storms have been going NW of here since there has been southeast ridging without any downstream or over the top blocking. I could see how we could suddenly get buried on the regular if all these storms and associated moisture start undercutting all the way across the country. It's going to be interesting to see what happens getting towards February. 

anomnight.1.12.2017.gif

   

That end of the Euro blew my mid. I was looking at H5 and saw the ridge over Hudson and though to myself, "Man, haven't seen that one before." Then I looked at the whole picture and saw that there were 2-3 areas of low pressure given the orientation of the pattern across the SE. Sure enough, you get one zanny looking setup, just in time to kill my vacation in Florida if that were to occur lol. As far as the long range goes, I certainly like what I see compared to what we have seen so far this winter. It was going to take some dramatic shifts in the pattern to see anything of significance down at this latitude. I heard a bit on the MJO, but I don't look at it too much. Good to hear it's trying to roll into phase 1. That would be a significant plus for the east no doubt. I'm thinking the big fun in the LR won't be until perhaps mid February when the pattern would be fully involved by then. I personally have always been a fan of February due to the shortened wave lengths beginning to become a player in the evolution of the upper level pattern. If we can keep the prospect of systems cutting underneath the Western ridge and and have the long wave pattern setup as is on the weeklies, I will take my chances on something hitting pay dirt. Have you seen the analogs for the upcoming LR? Some pretty hefty ones showing up. 1958, early 70's and 1993. I highly doubt we get an end game result like 1993, but you get the idea of the back loaded setup. For now, I guess we take our January thaw and like it. 

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My short term goal for this latest tiny winter event is for MDT to record at least .3 of an inch of snow to get the seasonal total to the 2 inch mark. Maybe this storm will go crazy & get us 1.3 inches to get us over the 3 inch mark for the season ?

CTP has a great discussion on this morning, which mentions the best chance of snow today is from the Rt. 322 corridor to the east, which puts State College to Harrisburg in the best spot for 1 inch, to possibly 2 inches if all goes well.

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3 hours ago, 2001kx said:

Wheres the rest of the yard? :P

Im glad i live in the sticks and dont have neighbors so close but hey it wont take you 3 hours to cut the grass either.

Nice shot of the snow...enjoy.

Thanks!

As for the yard, cutting the grass takes me about 5 minutes actually...lol

 

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Never really got any more precip after early yesterday afternoon. So pretty much a coating of snow (I'm calling it 0.2" haha) along with a trace of freezing rain that was enough to make for some hard to see black ice patches last night. Can see the Allegheny ridges out the window to my west that were socked in the low clouds/fog most of yesterday evening are all white with ice on the trees. 

I'm glad this event yesterday didn't come with a more moisture laden slug of precipitation.. it would've really been a mess given the CAD setup. 

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This winter is something else. After we get a couple minor snow/mix events with arctic cold lingering underneath a raging 500 ridge a week ago, we look to finally have a really nice looking 500mb pattern for a slow moving coastal storm near the D4-6 timeframe (just in time for the one year anniversary of the big one last year)...only this time the arctic cold is evacuated from the conus (and a lot of Canada as well). We're left with what will probably be mostly a rainstorm for a majority of the area. Unfortunately that's the risk of running an undercutting storm track under a major Canadian high height center without any western US or Pac ridging. You end up with an airmass source region that is marine vs continental in nature (i.e. Pacific air). However, given that we are getting into the climo low point for the year and this looks to be a fairly well developed coastal system that takes honestly a really nice Central PA track with the associated 850 and 700 lows.. I wouldn't be surprised if there is just barely enough cold air manufactured for the higher elevation interior central counties to make for some kind of wet snow issue. Euro kinda leaves the door open for that with it's solution while the GFS seemed to have a stronger, more easterly flow from the Atlantic. Will have to monitor that.

I also saw the 12z Euro D9-10+ bomb. Not gonna comment or get too crazy on it for now.. but you see that the 500mb pattern evolves to a major western US/western Canada ridge to set up the big eastern trough and nice alignment to run a coastal. We haven't really seen any kind of a lasting or major western ridge this winter to date, so we'll see what happens as this timeframe gets closer. 

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