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Central PA - Winter 2020/2021


MAG5035
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29 minutes ago, FHS said:
As I said before you can't wish or will a storm but you can pray for one.
                                    
                                                                                                                                         CPA WINTER PRAYER V1                                                                                                              Apostle FHS
  
  O dear Snow Lordeth heigheth up  who art in the icy cumulethnimbieth have mercy on thou the snowless. What  thou have done to deserveth such cold and dry punishment. Did ye tongue speak blasphemy against gfs, nam or euro or have thou brought anger uponeth the forum altar and vanquished thy flocks frozen precipitation .Thou wilt not practice in such iniquity but the fukn things suckith real bad O Great Acumulator and only raises up strife and contention amongst the flock. ye only asks to be protected from the wickedness of the sloteth and to rejoice in your heavenly cad. Ye dose not want to cast judgment onto your perfect winter plan but WTFeth  just give us some GD snoweth . Amen

All well and good, but I found a fatal flaw in the Church of FHS. Y'all run on the Julien calendar similar to that of the Eastern Orthodox church, so this prayer is probably 13 days behind the civilized world running on the Gregorian calendar. 

Weather 13 days ago on January 12: 43°F daytime high. 

Don't think the prayer is gonna work, bud. 

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53 minutes ago, pawatch said:

Blizz thanks for the maps. Lot of hours involved!

Now we're running into February. January was/is kind of a disappointment. But after December I shouldn't complain.

Voyager good luck with your training! Once you get OTR no complaints that snow storm is going to mess your run up. :lol:

Oh come on now. I wouldn't be me if I didn't... :P

But thanks for the well wishes! I do appreciate them. The company runs all 48 so I'm sure I'll see some snow somewhere out there.

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28 minutes ago, Itstrainingtime said:

Tonight - congrats to Cashtown and Rouzerville. (LSV specific) 

What we are now seeing is what i was worried about late last week.  We still see systems being able to cut (tonight),or get suppressed (this Thursday's non event).  It is really mindboggling to me, but when you look at the 500's it "makes sense"....even though it doesn't. I think if we had a slightly colder thermal profile wrt our "precious" NAO, it would have things bellying under a bit more (thinking todays event), but as the source region is just coldish, it lacks the strength to force systems south, and lets systems force west.  Just something I've been pondering for some time now.

Does that make sense.:P

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Just now, pasnownut said:

What we are now seeing is what i was worried about late last week.  We still see systems being able to cut (tonight),or get suppressed (this Thursday's non event).  It is really mindboggling to me, but when you look at the 500's it "makes sense"....even though it doesn't. I think if we had a slightly colder thermal profile wrt our "precious" NAO, it would have things bellying under a bit more (thinking todays event), but as the source region is just coldish, it lacks the strength to force systems south, and lets systems force west.  Just something I've been pondering for some time now.

Does that make sense.:P

Sure does - I had high hopes and extremely low expectations for this week all along. What is happening is not really a surprise to me, which is why I was trumpeting caution last week even while we under all those pretty colors on the snow maps.  

I'm not super enthused for the potential day 7 event either for mostly the same reasons...I bolded what matters to me, and I've been saying it for weeks. And we know how well Miller B's work for us, even when it is cold. 

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1 minute ago, canderson said:

CTP says MDT gets 1-2" of snow/sleet. I'll take closer to 1" - there's just no precip available to do anything worthwhile. A week of great winter opportunities go pretty much bust, unfortuantely. Maybe February will be better ... 

Agree - though if I was a betting man I'd take the under on that east of the river. 

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9 minutes ago, pasnownut said:

What we are now seeing is what i was worried about late last week.  We still see systems being able to cut (tonight),or get suppressed (this Thursday's non event).  It is really mindboggling to me, but when you look at the 500's it "makes sense"....even though it doesn't. I think if we had a slightly colder thermal profile wrt our "precious" NAO, it would have things bellying under a bit more (thinking todays event), but as the source region is just coldish, it lacks the strength to force systems south, and lets systems force west.  Just something I've been pondering for some time now.

Does that make sense.:P

It makes sense when you consider the trough in the western US that is of the magnitude of having it snowing in elevations all the way down in the Baja Peninsula of Mexico. You can fill in the blanks of what our weather regime would be like sans the -NAO/AO with something like that, though I'll go on a limb to say we probably wouldn't be discussing any prospect of winter weather for the upcoming week. The problem with today's system is it peaks in the midwest and is pretty much a sheared mess on our side of the country as it shoots from trough to trough underneath the blocking. We have sufficient cold although not ideal without much of a surface high. The QPF is the main problem as there has been a split between the WAA precip (which stays south and mainly southern tier) while the weakening low slides north and takes that precip mainly north of PA. This also trended away from a transferring to any kind of meaningful secondary the last few days and that also hurts with maintaining more of a solid precip area. Even with this being a mixing scenario there still would be a decent thump of snow if the precip's there for it. I mean we are still looking at some winter weather tonight even if it isn't much. 

This midweek storm unfortunately now looks to stay well south. This has a much more pronounced 500mb shortwave than today's storm but nothing to amp it. Closed 500mb low spinning under the block between here and Hudson Bay doesn't interact with it at all, and thus with the blocking pattern it's just going to shoot out. Is what it is. This current pattern is certainly doable for decent events here, that doesn't mean its going to work out though. Looks like we're going to be presented a similar situation to today later this coming weekend with something that attempts to cut, hopefully with more front end precip to work with and perhaps a secondary low. 

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6 minutes ago, MAG5035 said:

It makes sense when you consider the trough in the western US that is of the magnitude of having it snowing in elevations all the way down in the Baja Peninsula of Mexico. You can fill in the blanks of what our weather regime would be like sans the -NAO/AO with something like that, though I'll go on a limb to say we probably wouldn't be discussing any prospect of winter weather for the upcoming week. The problem with today's system is it peaks in the midwest and is pretty much a sheared mess on our side of the country as it shoots from trough to trough underneath the blocking. We have sufficient cold although not ideal without much of a surface high. The QPF is the main problem as there has been a split between the WAA precip (which stays south and mainly southern tier) while the weakening low slides north and takes that precip mainly north of PA. This also trended away from a transferring to any kind of meaningful secondary the last few days and that also hurts with maintaining more of a solid precip area. Even with this being a mixing scenario there still would be a decent thump of snow if the precip's there for it. I mean we are still looking at some winter weather tonight even if it isn't much. 

This midweek storm unfortunately now looks to stay well south. This has a much more pronounced 500mb shortwave than today's storm but nothing to amp it. Closed 500mb low spinning under the block between here and Hudson Bay doesn't interact with it at all, and thus with the blocking pattern it's just going to shoot out. Is what it is. This current pattern is certainly doable for decent events here, that doesn't mean its going to work out though. Looks like we're going to be presented a similar situation to today later this coming weekend with something that attempts to cut, hopefully with more front end precip to work with and perhaps a secondary low. 

Thx Mag.  I totally get what your saying and yes, if we didn't have the NAO, wed be totally out of the game.  I'm not complaining, but I'm trying to understand how the above bolded part can happen w/ the blocking we are having?  A weakening LP shouldn't just slide north??  FRD had been sharing the thermal profiles in Canada for the last few weeks and it really has been just "average" cold, and not below normal (which is often needed to get it cold enough to force systems under the block).

The default for systems to cut is unnerving to me, and in my mind, this is the new default (warm waters off east coast)?.  I also think the -PNA is really wrecking us here in the east even w/ the blocking as it still promotes ridging between events which promotes the cutter looks IMO 

It looks as thought the PNA is heading towards + which may promote better troughing here and let systems come under and not cut.  AO/NAO looks all over the place, but mean still neg, so that may show better looks down the road.  Just my thoughts.  

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19 minutes ago, pasnownut said:

CMC's evolution for the 1/31 deal is wonky, but I'd sign right now....Prolonged snow event verbatim.  Misses the transfer though and shows the strung out look.  

CMC is a weird evolution but does provide us good snow. Hope we can get trends in the right direction for a Sunday snowstorm during the day nonetheless. 

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@pasnownut That's what I was getting at with the first part of my post, you drive a trough in the west deep enough to snow in the Baja Peninsula your going to force heights up downstream. That's why we got this one cutting and its getting shredded in between the block and the attempted ridging in the east after peaking early and delivering a big snowstorm in the midwest. 

With regards to the cold that's been a concern of mine since late December and I've occasionally posted about it. I posted this over a week ago.

On 1/17/2021 at 3:36 PM, MAG5035 said:

This system in the longer range slated for early next week seems to be solidly in all guidance now in the general sense. All the op guidance last night tried to cut it to some degree, making messy solutions. Todays 12z GFS was more of the same with the Euro and Canadian now having a colder/weaker solution that does slide south and is all snow. GFS's deeper solution has more amplification and some northern stream interaction while Euro/Canadian run a weaker shortwave wave out with no interaction. One would have to worry more about suppression with the latter given the blocking. Either way big differences in the afternoon suite.

I've def been as optimistic as the next person with this upcoming pattern but i've soured a bit the last few days on some aspects. I'm not a fan of the evolution that has come about of retro-ing the pac ridge far enough west that it dumps the main trough into the western US (aka solid -PNA). Yea, with the strong NAO block the storm track will generally try to stay under us but I see limited phasing/amplification opportunity and if you do get it lined up/amped enough to get something like the stronger solutions from last night or today's GFS, they will try to cut. That brings me to the next problem, temps. Now if this potential system does try to cut into the block... it's likely going to weaken and/or transfer, and normally i'd favor a mostly frozen outcome even if the primary did get west of us. Problem is we currently don't have an actual solid cold air connection, and if that main trough dumps into the western US right when we finally see negative anomalies with some teeth building in Canada.. we're not going to be much colder than we are now as a lot of that cold will dump into the trough. So my worry with even the scenario of a stronger system with miller B evolution is we don't have strong enough antecedent cold to stave off a messy wintry mix type event over what normally could be a mainly snow event. Obviously a weaker system like the 12z Euro/Canadian wouldn't have the precip issues as we maintain colder temps, but the weaker system would be more apt to get outmuscled by the -NAO and only give us a lighter event or even a southern or suppressed one. 

Climo's on our side this time of the year with seasonable or marginal temps but we're going to get bit if we don't get some legit arctic air involved in the pattern. That goes double for the Mid-Atlantic region and the southern fringes of our region that can pretty much be an extension of the northern Mid-Atlantic climo. Current case in point... despite passage of a pretty deep trough where at 12z tomorrow morning there's sub 528 heights and sub 522 thicknesses across most of the state in mid-January, we're still going to be above average temp wise. That's something that normally could equate to a day that has highs in the teens to 20s-30ish NW to SE across the state with a run of the mill cold airmass. Harrisburg is forecast to still hit 41 tomorrow.  

 

 

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41 minutes ago, MAG5035 said:

@pasnownut That's what I was getting at with the first part of my post, you drive a trough in the west deep enough to snow in the Baja Peninsula your going to force heights up downstream. That's why we got this one cutting and its getting shredded in between the block and the attempted ridging in the east after peaking early and delivering a big snowstorm in the midwest. 

With regards to the cold that's been a concern of mine since late December and I've occasionally posted about it. I posted this over a week ago.

 

Thanks and nice call from a week ago.  I remember the read but forgot your post about the western trough.  That's the only sensible reasoning for the cutting to be happening while we've got blocking, but still I just don't quite see how that LP can meander NE right into it instead of getting forced under?  Thats the point I'm trying to make.

The upcoming non storm for Thursday makes more sense from what should happen w/ the blocking.  Obviously timing/spacing probably plays into the forcing as well  

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Horst throws out a little carrot:
The coldest air of the season so far will arrive THU/FRI. Next Monday (Feb 1st) looks more interesting as a strong Pacific storm, arriving in Cali this FRI, will track east w/ a favorable downstream setup for NE US snow. Remember, FEB is our snowiest month...

Check the Euro out!!


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