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Central PA - December 2017


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Wow...winds have dramatically picked up here in the last 15 minutes now sustained over 25, gusting to 37 !!  Pressure falling rapidly, now down to 29.18".  I crossed the 40" barrier this evening for year-to-date precipitation, and I had my first sub-freezing low temperature Friday morning.  This coastal low is bombing to the hilt.  Models have it down below 970mb up in northern NY state later tomorrow.  Amazing.  Oh, yeah, temp down to 46 and dropping.

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2 hours ago, Blizzard of 93 said:

I’m dreaming of this having this same radar in January or February with a nice fresh cold high anchored to our north along with a winter storm warning for heavy snow....

Back to reality, MAG & other folks that live near the higher terrain of western CTP, please keep us posted on any snow that you encounter out in your area!

Just made the 5 minute drive from the Penn State Altoona campus up to the top of Wopsy Mountain (about 2500'), it is now snowing up there with no accums to note at the time. Still raining down here but mixing looked like it was getting down to about at least 1800' if not lower (I'm at around 1300' in my new neighborhood). Temps from here at home to the top went from 37-33ºF. Winds are also starting to kick up as well.

This was/is a very impressive storm and it delivered a lot of rain here today. I know I was thinking the same thing about seeing this in January/Feb. I think this bomb would've had a shot even a month from now. Today happened to be the anniversary of the 10/29/2011 snowstorm.

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24 minutes ago, canderson said:

Looks like MDT recorded a high gust of 38 mph, but Fort Indiantown Gap chalked in at 71 mph. Given all the BIG trees down in the city, Camp Hill and Lingelstown area they were def higher than upper 30s to the west here. 

Its been a long time since i heard wind like that. Not sure i slept to much. I'd have to think maybe Hurricane Irene was the last time the wind had me a lil nervous. It was dark when i left so i don't know what or if anything was disrupted

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24 minutes ago, sauss06 said:

Its been a long time since i heard wind like that. Not sure i slept to much. I'd have to think maybe Hurricane Irene was the last time the wind had me a lil nervous. It was dark when i left so i don't know what or if anything was disrupted

Very interesting. When I woke up for work this morning my wife looked at me and asked what happened to all the rain and wind. I'm guessing it was around 11pm or so last night I heard the wind kick up for about 10 minutes. Never heard a thing after that. Went out this morning and saw no evidence of wind really...I saw no trees, branches, or twigs down. I came across a few leaves blowing about, but that was it. Just over 1" of rain total. Not sure what was different here than up your way. Weird. 

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2 hours ago, maytownpawx said:

Very interesting. When I woke up for work this morning my wife looked at me and asked what happened to all the rain and wind. I'm guessing it was around 11pm or so last night I heard the wind kick up for about 10 minutes. Never heard a thing after that. Went out this morning and saw no evidence of wind really...I saw no trees, branches, or twigs down. I came across a few leaves blowing about, but that was it. Just over 1" of rain total. Not sure what was different here than up your way. Weird. 

Wow, isn't that something. It was right before the Steelers game at 830 when the wind picked up and our township started having power outages. I fell asleep watching the game guessing around 1030. I woke up at 1146 when we had a tree on an apartment building. It was then basically non-stop for several hours. Just howling wind and it was pelting rain, sideways. 

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14 hours ago, canderson said:

Looks like MDT recorded a high gust of 38 mph, but Fort Indiantown Gap chalked in at 71 mph. Given all the BIG trees down in the city, Camp Hill and Lingelstown area they were def higher than upper 30s to the west here. 

The wind ordeal did get a mention in CTPs Monday morning discussion.. debating whether it was a gravity wave or a sting jet. Given the point of maturity and the strength/positioning of the cyclone at the time the Fort Indiantown Gap wind was measured, my vote probably would be for the sting jet feature as the more likely occurrence of the two...although from what I've read it would seem sting jets are more of a thing associated with very deep and mature ocean storms... though on the other hand this thing was in fact quite a bomb.  Either way the storm also had some tropical influence (Phillipe) entrained into it.. and previous experience with such things (Wilma 2005, Sandy, etc) has shown that these type of hybrid systems can do some pretty crazy things. 

From Mon Morning CTP discussion 

Quote

NEAR TERM /THROUGH TONIGHT/... Flash Flood Watch remains in effect for my northeastern counties through 8AM. The storm as of 6 am has moved to near Moose Creek which is just north of the NY/Canadian border. It continues to deepen with a pressure down near 970mb now. Not bad for the first east coast cyclone of the season. Local radar shows the deformation zone rain mainly over my NERN counties where rainfall amounts in excess of 3 inches have been common. AHHH but if it had been snow. The radar also shows most of the precipitation has ended over Somerset County where earlier we could see some snow on regional web cams. The HRRR has the last of the steady rain gradually shrinking and finally leaving my CWA just after sunrise, leaving behind some dwindling showers. The storm even managed to absorb the circulation of the old TS Philippe, which the satellite showed racing up toward southeastern New England where SE winds are still gusting between 55-65 mph. The RAP showed the wind max with this feature quite nicely. As rainfall begins early today, a strong NW flow will continue throughout the morning before beginning to slowly diminish this afternoon. The parameters for a wind advisory are marginal, but isolated wind gusts in the 40-50 mph range are likely and could result in downed tree limbs/branches and isolated power outages. We see a brief period of drying for the first half of the day when another fast moving shortwave aloft is expected to bring a return of showers to western portions of the area for the last part of the afternoon. A number of weak shortwaves are forecast to be embedded within the very fast cyclonic upper flow around the big storm that will have moved well up into Canada. This will keep the northern tier of my forecast area under the gun for scattered rain or even snow showers. A meteorological curiosity...we had an interesting occurrence at KMUI, Fort Indian Town Gap in Lebanon county between about 10 and 11 PM as the dry slot was surging north. They had a short period of strong winds, with a top gust of 61kt/70mph. EMA reports scattered tree damage around the area and we have a few pictures of trees knocked over completely. In office debate is ongoing on whether this was a gravity wave event or the dreaded sting jet wrapping around the comma head of our monster cyclone.

 

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30 minutes ago, canderson said:

Eric Horst issued his winter outlook. He predicts above average temp as a mean with high fluctuations. Lots and lots of clippers and lots of mixed precip events and higher than normal pure freezing rain events. 

You can read his outlook on his Twitter account. 

Great, who deosn't like freezing rain. :wacko:

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2 hours ago, canderson said:

Eric Horst issued his winter outlook. He predicts above average temp as a mean with high fluctuations. Lots and lots of clippers and lots of mixed precip events and higher than normal pure freezing rain events. 

You can read his outlook on his Twitter account. 

Somewhat similar to last year's forecast. I remember him calling for a warmer than normal winter with lots of mixed precip events. We'll see how he does this year. I'm kind of ashamed that you posted a tweet from him before I read it myself. :)

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17 hours ago, canderson said:

Eric Horst issued his winter outlook. He predicts above average temp as a mean with high fluctuations. Lots and lots of clippers and lots of mixed precip events and higher than normal pure freezing rain events. 

You can read his outlook on his Twitter account. 

I really like Eric's forecast this year. Sometimes I disagree on a point or two (We used to talk about it when I worked with him back at Millersville. I was 1-1 against him in predicting snow lol), but this year, I have zero discrepancies. I'm pretty concerned with the prospects of a freezing rain event for the southern tier and Susquehanna Valley due to the pretty solid arctic airmasses we could pull in the second half of the winter season and a struggle to gain high latitude blocking. The lack of blocking presents a setup of progressive, cold highs moving over the GL and pulling east within a 2-3 day span. With an active northern branch, all it takes is for energy to dive down the backside of the trough cutting through the east and spawning a low to the south, moving northeast up and over the Mid Atlantic. Timing of a strong cold shot and lingering wedge with low track over the Mid Atlantic would open the door to transition events and prolonged freezing rain due to depth of cold air left behind with the wedge. It's a classic look with long range prospects and weak Nina's are more prone to ZR events for winter in the past years for the Susquehanna Valley.

My feeling is we struggle with the AO/NAO blocking signal all winter despite all the talk of the QBO, low solar min due to the fact we're already seeing a shift away from negative indices on those two teleconnections. Lots of talk in the MA forum with great analysis by many posters on the past setups and prudent analogs to help decipher potential impacts for the MA as a whole. One trend noted was the AO/NAO combo for fall is actually fairly important to our prospects in sustaining a neg/pos indice through the coming winter. If fall generates a sustained positive or negative through the season, it generally coincides with longer term sustainment for the winter and right now, we've trended in the wrong direction. I will say the QBO state and shifting SST's over the North Atlantic are more beneficial to opening the door for more transient blocking schemes, which could be pretty solid for periods of time during peak winter, but the overall outlook just looks too muddy to really promote, with confidence, anything greater than normal for anyone east of the Laurels into the Susquehanna Valley. Places near the lakes could cash pretty well this year due to the synoptic pattern setting up with a greater chance of low amplitude troughs cutting across the lakes into New England. With the transient cold shots, Erie could remain unfrozen for a longer period of time and season around Erie and adjacent counties could make it into February or longer, leaving the door open to more snow falling in form of LE in tandem with progressive clippers and the occasional cutter up into the GL's and interior PA. 

There's still some questions as to strength of Nina heading through winter and how the EPAC will evolve heading into the winter season, so there's room for drastic shifts, both good and bad, for the sub-forum. A stronger Nina would generate a much higher opportunity for BN snowfall and AN temps due to stronger SE ridge prospects and lower amplitude trough's east of the Mississippi. A more Neutral outlook in ENSO would offer a little more southern jet, split flow type of setup leaving the door open for phasing and a greater chance at getting a major EC storm to brew and affect the NE with ample moisture with the Gulf having a greater opportunity to get involved. It's a complex setup with multiple variables, some of which we will not know until we actually enter Met Winter. I think one given at this point is the cold region in Western and Central Canada should be much more prolific than last year where snow was way below normal and our cold source was too temperate to provide any long term, sustained cold blasts into the east that aid in the timing of any system entering the area. I would expect some well below normal weeks in January-early March with below freezing high's more common this winter than last. We'll see how it all plays out in time. In the meantime, we'll just have to take our pig ridge and "like" it (Expect for Voyager. I'm sure he's enjoying it right now) lol. 

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9 hours ago, Superstorm said:


This upcoming cold is going to be a shock to the system.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

CTP is ramping up their forecast for some wet snow to impact the region tomorrow pm. Their discussion update this evening is a good read. They mention the NAM & other short range models are showing increasing chances of wet snow tomorrow especially in the Central mountains of CTP.

Their current local forecast for the Harrisburg area even has a chance of rain possibly changing to snow later tomorrow evening. Perhaps some of us will see our first flakes of the season by this time tomorrow ?! 

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Wouldn't be surprised to see some snow mixing in across places along the 81 corridor today. Central Mountains in the state should see some minor accumulation (<1") but something nonetheless. The areas across Somerset look to cash in the best. Mount Davis trip anyone? :) 

As for this coming weekend cold, there will undoubtedly be some teens across the region with most falling between 15-22 degrees across the sub-forum. Nice way to kick off the cold season. Man the Weeklies look fantastic. I'm still hesitant on buying what it's selling, but the flip to progressive pattern we've seen lately wants to flip right back to blocking in the long range. I still think it'll end up being a bit more transient than what its throwing out currently, but the cold shots starting end of November into the first half of December could very well be legit and LES season should crank by then as well. I have a feeling we'll be tracking some flakes in the next 6 weeks for everyone, and I'm not just talking about tracking my mental state lol

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Havent seen the weeklies, but caught snippets yesterday that things were starting to look up.  Totally fine w/ the transient look early on as that is typical, but hope that as we near December, we can cash in on a month that should work for us in the phase state were in.  Would be just fantastic to have a December that feels festive, and some flakes flyin always helps.

Stockin up on coffee....:)

 

Nut 

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Just took a peek and it is really starting to look better both near and long term.  Not winter locking in, but definitely showing up and letting us know that we will get cold (or at least have cold nearby). 

 

Thru Turkey day looks rather zonal (fine w/ me) but times of warm/cold intrusions with wrinkles and buckling of the jet and Canada is finally going to be cold.  We need that at this time of year for any staying power of cold intrusions.  .

 

Nut

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