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E PA/NJ/DE Winter 2017-18 OBS Thread


Rtd208

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39 minutes ago, RedSky said:

12z ECM has a major ice storm Monday - January 1994 level 

In case anybody wasn't sure this is deep winter now...

 

I actually had a feeling that event would trend in that direction. I mean it is has happened many many many time before, but I would be pretty surprised to go from likely below zero sunday morning to above freezing by the time precip arrives monday. I had thought this had mix event written all over it. Especially since the models are likely underdoing the strength of the cold air due to the snowcover that will be on the ground. The coastal plain is always iffy in these situations but for the NW burbs, the major ice stom threat is real.

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54 minutes ago, RedSky said:

12z ECM has a major ice storm Monday - January 1994 level 

In case anybody wasn't sure this is deep winter now...

 

I hope that doesn't verify.  I remember that bad Jan. 7-8 1994 one when I had to go on a work trip down to Baltimore (via train) and drove to 30th St. station during it (in the morning).  I literally was about to go up on the Schuylkill Expressway figuring it was a "primary" that would be salted and as I approached the exit ramp to get to it, KYW's traffic report said PennDOT was about to close it.  I literally just barely managed to bypass going up the ramp and kept going straight instead right to the Kelly Drive, which would take me into town to get to Amtrak.  People were eventually trapped up on the expressway for hours unable to get off.  At the time the tri-state area was completely out of salt including retail halite (they were trucking some road salt down via convoys from NY IIRC).  However when I was down in Baltimore, I was able to buy a couple bags and bring them back in my luggage on the train, so our house (at the time) was the only one with a sidewalk clear to the cement. :thumbsup:

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37 minutes ago, Hurricane Agnes said:

I hope that doesn't verify.  I remember that bad Jan. 7-8 1994 one when I had to go on a work trip down to Baltimore (via train) and drove to 30th St. station during it (in the morning).  I literally was about to go up on the Schuylkill Expressway figuring it was a "primary" that would be salted and as I approached the exit ramp to get to it, KYW's traffic report said PennDOT was about to close it.  I literally just barely managed to bypass going up the ramp and kept going straight instead right to the Kelly Drive, which would take me into town to get to Amtrak.  People were eventually trapped up on the expressway for hours unable to get off.  At the time the tri-state area was completely out of salt including retail halite (they were trucking some road salt down via convoys from NY IIRC).  However when I was down in Baltimore, I was able to buy a couple bags and bring them back in my luggage on the train, so our house (at the time) was the only one with a sidewalk clear to the cement. :thumbsup:

Ah I remember that Jan. well.  Of all times to work for an oil company.  The truck drivers (the ones that could get around) and the service techs were working 24/7 for weeks! the owner was buying pick up trucks off the dealers lots and putting 100 gal. fuel tanks in the bed to get to the urban folks with long drives and underground huge oil tanks-dropping 80/100 gals. at a time.  Service had the sales team and anyone else they could find on the street thawing houses that had frozen pipes from the power outages.  The list was long for that.  It all ended with massive flooding from ice jams on the Brandywine Creek.  Still one of the highest levels ever recorded.

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32 minutes ago, Lady Di said:

Ah I remember that Jan. well.  Of all times to work for an oil company.  The truck drivers (the ones that could get around) and the service techs were working 24/7 for weeks! the owner was buying pick up trucks off the dealers lots and putting 100 gal. fuel tanks in the bed to get to the urban folks with long drives and underground huge oil tanks-dropping 80/100 gals. at a time.  Service had the sales team and anyone else they could find on the street thawing houses that had frozen pipes from the power outages.  The list was long for that.  It all ended with massive flooding from ice jams on the Brandywine Creek.  Still one of the highest levels ever recorded.

And then 2 years later, in comes the 30+" of snow in one day.  LOL  And the ice jams and then flooding from that with the rapid thaw from a warm up and pouring rain was insane.

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I wonder if we will go thru an extended period of moderation or even AN temps for a while after this cold snap this weekend? I know some guidance is hinting at a relax. But I wonder if we actually reload the pattern or if the atmosphere is "out of gas" now for a while? I recall in several past monster bombing Atlantic winter storms we enter a period of inactive storm tracks and moderation. I dont see why this would be any different. I just wonder how long it takes to re-establish a sustained BN temp regime, if at all? I for one am ready for a thaw after this weekend and a few plain rain events would be welcome to wash some of the road/vehicle salts away and to give the heating bill a break.

Definitely a great start this year....early and often cold and snow, well BN temps, sustained cold spells, temps to 0F for lows, and above normal season-to-date snowfall. Probably will be close to needing less than 10" more this season in my area to hit normal seasonal snowfall pending today's final tally.

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I got pictures of the ice jam in our creek back in 94 or 95. It froze for a month then it rained and it warmed up and flooded behind in the neshaminy creek in croydon. We had a boat shelter gazebo on a concrete pier destroyed by the flooded 2 foot thick ice. Now mind you the shelter was made up of steel I beams in concrete! If you guys are interested in pictures I can dig them up. 

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Nws point and click has snow now Monday an Monday night. Only good thing is only 3.5 days lead time  not a week to track lol

Looks like we have the cmc and navgem with the coastal system look. More phasing between streams. GFS is more zonal and less/no phasing with progressive ns that allows temps and boundary to remain colder/south while stj disturbance passes to the south with a mix here. Euro also separate and slower in stj havent looked at precip maps.

 

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4 hours ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

I for one am ready for a thaw after this weekend and a few plain rain events would be welcome to wash some of the road/vehicle salts away and to give the heating bill a break.

This lazy lurker agrees.  Time for a brief thaw.  BTW thanks for sticking with this storm when others were less interested.

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I like the early week system for some type of minor accumulation especially for the Lehigh Valley. It's going to be a battle between a more amped up solution resulting in a much more southerly flow to be introduced vs. a weaker less amped up vort that should be able to stay more zonal and allow for the cold to stay in place more. I'd love for this to trend more amped AND colder, but I may have to just take a weaker event.

18z GFS:

gfs_mslp_pcpn_frzn_neus_19.png

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3 hours ago, Plokoon111 said:

I got pictures of the ice jam in our creek back in 94 or 95. It froze for a month then it rained and it warmed up and flooded behind in the neshaminy creek in croydon. We had a boat shelter gazebo on a concrete pier destroyed by the flooded 2 foot thick ice. Now mind you the shelter was made up of steel I beams in concrete! If you guys are interested in pictures I can dig them up. 

We like ice jam pictures

 

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fwiw rgem and cmc led the way with this past storm. nam too. obviously we have a long way to go but to me, this set up screams ice for 95 and snow for Lehigh valley. models likely under doing the strength of the cold air. it's possible we rain but with the snow cover and big cold shot this weekend I like our chances. after this storm I think we moderate but I don't see a torch anywhere in the LR. slightly above normal which is still chilly in January. I think rest of the month after this next event will be thump snow to rain or ice to rain events. there's so much cold air that will be around that we may even get another fluke event. im only about 4 inches now from normal snow and I think there's a chance I'm above normal by Feb. lots of ice currently in the Delaware. if this next event trends warmer flooding and ice jams will be a big concern especially after the arctic weekend only strengthening the ice pack.

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At 84 hrs the 18z ggem has a full phase happening with trof already taking on a neutral/slight negative tilt look around the Mississippi River. 2m temps are plenty cold but it isnt the best look for snow that ive ever seen tbh. Confluence is a little ne of where we would like and we are on the backside of hp. Ggem doesnt have a whole lot of support tho. Something to watch anyway.

 

Eta: this look and phase would likely pump heights along the coast too much

 

87850bc1f262c2cb3ab969523abacd07.gif&key=76690a9af98ffda7f9d5f397cc913ed6ddf39e2595a70b019af645d8aa387a9d

 

 

 

 

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I like the early week system for some type of minor accumulation especially for the Lehigh Valley. It's going to be a battle between a more amped up solution resulting in a much more southerly flow to be introduced vs. a weaker less amped up vort that should be able to stay more zonal and allow for the cold to stay in place more. I'd love for this to trend more amped AND colder, but I may have to just take a weaker event.
18z GFS:
gfs_mslp_pcpn_frzn_neus_19.png&key=8a4de7145b9816c5ba5aaae6ccf857d11d5da8cd953a8396f922d2629ec51fe7
Ice

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

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12 hours ago, Newman said:

Plows have come through but road conditions are still terrible. The winds are howling like crazy and are creating completely snow covered back roads. Many Berks County schools will be closed for 2 days literally over 1-3". 

It's probably snowy/icy roads, super cold w/nasty wind chills and most importantly, it's FRIDAY! What the hell, close the schools...4 day weekend. You gotta be happy for the kids. I would be jumping around like a nut...  

 

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yeah not gonna lie I was hoping the state would have just closed for 4 days. roads were surprisingly pretty good though. still icy and snow covered in spots but rain roads were fine. got down to 9F last night. projected high of 14 today. tomorrow night should get below zero and many places will make a run at it tn imo. 

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Reviewing my winter forecast and here's how December verified for me.

 

Quote

December - Temps 0 to -2; Snowfall above average; Active storm track - due to December climatology some will be rain or mix while N and W cashes in. I think there will be a few overrunning events towards the end of the months as well. 

 

Temps- Feel like I nailed temps this month ... KABE was -.7 F on the month, KTTN -1.7, KPHL -1.4, ILG -1.9, KACY -1.9, KRDG -2.2

Snowfall - Did fairly well in this department as well. Most areas finished above normal for Dec snowfall and area's that didn't were around normal. 

Overall pattern and forecast - I was wrong with N and W doing better than the rest of the area and overrunning being the source of the snow events but overall the thoughts of below normal temps and above normal snow were pretty good. Storm track was not incredibly active and there was a down period in mid month that was dry but overall I feel my December thoughts verified well. A- for December

Here is what I wrote for January:

Quote

January - Temps +1 to +3, the above average temps in 2nd half of the month outweigh the slightly below average temps in 1st half and maybe first 2/3rds of month. As we have seen in years past that pattern changes usually take longer than anticipated; Snowfall average. I think the storm track remains active in the first part of the month and this is our best shot of snow. The time period before the pattern change could be the big storm for the winter. Pattern changes mid-late month and along with it the storm track becomes less active and temps rise. Could see a pattern close to september/october imo.

 

I'm off to a good start though we are going to be well below normal this first week-10 days. Remains to see how much we moderate mid month. Yesterday's storm very well could have been the big one for the winter and we got scraped as opposed to raked. I don't see a torch in the LR at this time though so averaging out above normal may not happen after all with this extreme cold the first 10 days. Next week we moderate, but it remains to be seen whether we reload or if the thaw is a long term pattern shift. With the active pattern so far, it will be difficult for areas to finish below normal snow wise on the year but still possible if the upcoming pattern doesn't even give us chances of thump events. Overall, winter so far has gone according to my thoughts but I am hoping I am wrong about late month and February and this pattern shift is only short term.

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I found this write up from DonSutherland over in the NYC forum very informative/interesting so I am posting it here. Definitely something to think about for Monday's storm and the late week event...

 

Quote

Yesterday’s blizzard dumped 4.1” snow at Philadelphia, 9.8” at New York City, and 13.4” in Boston. Since 1950, it was the 16th storm to bring at least 4” snow to each of those three cities. Looking at the first such occurrence in January (2011 and 2014 had two such storms), all 14 cases saw at least some measureable snow in the 20 days following the snowstorm.

Least: 0.2”, 2005
Most: 26.8”, 2011

<1”: 21% cases
1” or more: 79% cases
2” or more: 71% cases
4” or more: 43% cases
6” or more: 27% cases

Mean: 7.4”
Median: 4.2”

Considering the forecast pattern change, a below median figure is more likely than not. Further, as the ongoing AO-/PNA+ pattern is likely to break down after mid-month, I expect the warmest reading s to occur toward the end of the thaw (probably in the January 20-25 timeframe). Therefore, the limited snowfall opportunities may be confined to the first 10 days.

On the current guidance, there are two possible candidates:  January 8-9 and January 12-13.

Among those cases were two cases where a storm brought 4” or more snow to Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston in December (as occurred during December 9-10, 2017). Both those cases featured a snowy February.

Overall, my thinking that January 2018 could see 10”-15” monthly snowfall and the idea of a snowier than normal, possibly much snowier than normal winter, still appear solidly on the proverbial fairway.

Finally, in the past week, the ENSO Region 3.4 anomaly warmed from -1.0°C to -0.6°C. It is still a little soon to determine whether the ongoing La Niña event has peaked.

 

 

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Last post this morning(maybe) but with the lack of blocking forecasted at this time, I think the event late next week has a pretty strong chance of being a cutter. This could be a big deal especially if it cuts up the apps. 1-2 inches of rain on top of frozen ground and most of the local waterways frozen over would provide a big flood threat via ice jams. Definitely something to watch especially if monday trends colder like has been occurring. If Monday is a majority frozen event then we likely only barely get above freezing(still in the 30's) until that event. If Monday trends warmer though, the threat would be lower as we would see a more gradual melt as opposed to an all at once melt. Regardless if it is rain, snow, ice, cold, or warm over the next 10 days, there should be several interesting weather events through mid month.

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