Jump to content
  • Member Statistics

    17,502
    Total Members
    7,904
    Most Online
    Weathernoob335
    Newest Member
    Weathernoob335
    Joined

Central PA - Jan/Feb 2019 Obs and Discussion


MAG5035
 Share

Recommended Posts

3 hours ago, djr5001 said:

Ugh can't believe I missed the Harrisburg data rabbit hole the last few days lol!! @Jns2183 I have a number of files that I have managed to pull together with Harrisburg's records dating back to 1888.  Unfortunately I am blocked here at work from being able to upload anything to something like google docs to share anything that I have but I will try to see if I can figure something out.  Like you had noted - there have been a number of location changes for Harrisburg where daily observations have occurred but I believe Harrisburg's official record dates back to 1888.  I worked through the data and have managed to find what I believe are the transition dates for each site based on what NWS State College has used for daily/monthly/seasonal records for temperatures and or precipitation. 

My go to sites are through NCDC.  Through this first link (not just for Harrisburg) there are a good number of archived data files for both airports as well as COOP and other stations.  Only issue is that I don't know what data is and isn't available there to everyone as I have access to it. 

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/IPS/

This second link below is likely a better resource as it allows downloads of significant amounts of data for stations.  I have .PDF files with the daily summaries for each month for MDT, Capital City, and earlier but need to see if I can recall the steps I used to request this data.  Same thing can be done for almost any available station so if someone is looking for data for somewhere not Harrisburg this may be a good resource too.

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/

While this may be a great resource - I have found occasional errors in the data that do not match up with other historical publications (likely occurring in the process of scanning the old files) so beware of occasional errors/discrepancies. 

Thank you for the great resources!!!  I have seen some errors and currently am trying to account for a significant issue I found between reported precipitation totals from KMDT and KCXY in the winter time.  From 2001 through January 24th, 2019 I looked at the difference in totals from October through March.  I then look at when snow was reported at KMDT that was > a Trace, and that occurred on 22.8% of days with a precipitation difference, but those days accounted for 52.13% of the total difference.  Then I looked at days it snowed 3"+ which occurred on just 4.82% of the days with a difference, but accounted for 31.16% of the total difference.  These differences were almost entirely one sided in that KMDT reported more precipitation.  I ran a correlation between snow and difference for all the days that differences occurred in January from 2001 through present and snow was correlated at 44.5% and squaring that gives r^2 of 19.8%, which means that the fact it snowed period, can explain 19.8% of the variability in the differences of precipitation between both stations.  I think KCXY must be automated and having an issue with frozen precipitation and correct totals.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, bubbler86 said:

HRRR mostly agrees with Nam though it is advertising a plowable 4-6" just to the east of Cashtown along the mason dixon as well as in Nut land but again temps are not good so something is not right on that depiction.  Mid to upper 30's when the snow is falling. 

 

 

I’ve set my bar at 2” for this one.   Any more than that would be a bonus 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, Cashtown_Coop said:

I’ve set my bar at 2” for this one.   Any more than that would be a bonus 

Im going w/ 3" for mby.  Seems like I have a shot, but I'm a whisper away from very little here, so I'm prepping myself.....lol

Hoping round 1 over preforms for all of you.  

Good luck gang.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Seems to me like the main differences in runs/output is dependent on how much the frontal wave interacts with the front in our region and whether or not the areas in the WWA zone get that brief period of higher intensity tomorrow afternoon (12z Euro) or not (12&18z HRRR/NAM).  Its early, but interaction doesn't look to be off to a great start across the south.  If the frontal wave ends up east of the models at all I can see how Harrisburg struggles to reach even an inch.  The NAM snowmaps seem to play up accumulating snow during the morning hours more than what most other models indicate may occur.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, djr5001 said:

Seems to me like the main differences in runs/output is dependent on how much the frontal wave interacts with the front in our region and whether or not the areas in the WWA zone get that brief period of higher intensity tomorrow afternoon (12z Euro) or not (12&18z HRRR/NAM).  Its early, but interaction doesn't look to be off to a great start across the south.  If the frontal wave ends up east of the models at all I can see how Harrisburg struggles to reach even an inch.  The NAM snowmaps seem to play up accumulating snow during the morning hours more than what most other models indicate may occur.

Yep, two main camps out there.  The Icon leading the "NWS just screwed up again" camp with just melting light snow around MDT.  I would feel a lot better about tomorrow if it were not going to be near or above freezing.  This is not a major snow either way and taking place during daylight will limit its disruption but that 3-6" forecast is ballsy. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Wmsptwx said:

When would frontal squalls roll through area?

From NWS AFD


There remains the potential for localized snow squalls on
Wednesday as the leading edge of -20C to -30C air at 850mb
plows into central PA. Lake effect snow trajectories are focused
outside of CTP CWA into extreme northwest PA (Erie Co.) and
mainly southwest NY.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, paweather said:

Next week is back to boring. 

I don't think the warmth is going to last long.  All the indexes, EPO, AO, NAO are forecast to swing solidly into our favorable direction which will leave weeks 2, 3, and 4 of February in a very cold and stormy pattern.  Euro weeklies have never given up on forecasting this and are still showing this for the eastern US.  Personally, after this week's arctic outbreak I won't mind a break from the extreme cold for a bit.  On the other hand it would be nice to build up a snow base, which even if we get one tomorrow might not be around come the end of this weekend.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

25 minutes ago, CarlislePaWx said:

I don't think the warmth is going to last long.  All the indexes, EPO, AO, NAO are forecast to swing solidly into our favorable direction which will leave weeks 2, 3, and 4 of February in a very cold and stormy pattern.  Euro weeklies have never given up on forecasting this and are still showing this for the eastern US.  Personally, after this week's arctic outbreak I won't mind a break from the extreme cold for a bit.  On the other hand it would be nice to build up a snow base, which even if we get one tomorrow might not be around come the end of this weekend.

Yes, it looks like only a 3 or 4 day warm up at the most starting on Sunday. 

According to tonight’s Euro weeklies, & recent runs of the GEFS & CFS, it looks like February could still be loaded with wintry potential if we can get some of the advertised -NAO blocking to deliver.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, paweather said:

Radar looks like crap

I think the radar looks pretty good. There is precip tailing back along the front the whole way back to Texas. There is also also precip streaming in from the gulf down in Louisiana. This should feed in into the secondary wave that develops along the front tomorrow.

Current temperatures look good too with current temps in the 20’s & dew points in the 10-15 range region wide. 

573018CF-5FFF-4952-8C52-2EC39DCEF0E6.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...