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Central PA - Winter 2020/2021 Part 2


MAG5035
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Woke up at 3am and took a peak out the window, all non-paved surfaces solidly covered, had to be at least 1/2”. All mostly gone this morning. Hard to know what to put in the books. I used to have situations like this being at work all day and knowing accumulating snow fell but then by the time I got home it was gone, would always try and estimate from other sources in those instances. How do the official reporters on the board handle these situations?  Thanks!

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18 minutes ago, Mount Joy Snowman said:

Woke up at 3am and took a peak out the window, all non-paved surfaces solidly covered, had to be at least 1/2”. All mostly gone this morning. Hard to know what to put in the books. I used to have situations like this being at work all day and knowing accumulating snow fell but then by the time I got home it was gone, would always try and estimate from other sources in those instances. How do the official reporters on the board handle these situations?  Thanks!

Snow is the most important thing in life and you have to do everything humanly possible to measure every flake.   #noexcuses

Serious answer, luckily with my work I get to measure every storm.   I have one of most flexible winter schedules but when summer hits I may work 90 to 100 days straight with no days off.  (Golf course superintendent)

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24 minutes ago, Cashtown_Coop said:

Snow is the most important thing in life and you have to do everything humanly possible to measure every flake.   #noexcuses

Serious answer, luckily with my work I get to measure every storm.   I have one of most flexible winter schedules but when summer hits I may work 90 to 100 days straight with no days off.  (Golf course superintendent)

No excuses play like a champion! But seriously that works out great for you. Let me ask you this, in the hypothetical scenario where cashtown coop, despite has grandest efforts, couldn’t be around for a live measurement of a snowfall that then melted off, how would he handle such a situation? 

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5 minutes ago, Mount Joy Snowman said:

No excuses play like a champion! But seriously that works out great for you. Let me ask you this, in the hypothetical scenario where cashtown coop, despite has grandest efforts, couldn’t be around for a live measurement of a snowfall that then melted off, how would he handle such a situation? 

You could use liquid equivalent to get a snow ratio or use the closet trusted spotter report or other coop site and use that data.  For example, the coop site in Biglerville will often use my snow numbers for weekend events because the site is ran by the penn state ag dept which have off sat and sun.  

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45 minutes ago, Cashtown_Coop said:

Snow is the most important thing in life and you have to do everything humanly possible to measure every flake.   #noexcuses

Serious answer, luckily with my work I get to measure every storm.   I have one of most flexible winter schedules but when summer hits I may work 90 to 100 days straight with no days off.  (Golf course superintendent)

Please tell this to CTP & the MDT observer!

The MDT observer’s job is simple today....He needs to put .3 inches at least on the books for our 20 inch snow February!

(I can’t wait to see the inevitable “T” that gets put down tonight....)

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7 minutes ago, Cashtown_Coop said:

You could use liquid equivalent to get a snow ratio or use the closet trusted spotter report or other coop site and use that data.  For example, the coop site in Biglerville will often use my snow numbers for weekend events because the site is ran by the penn state ag dept which have off sat and sun.  

Gotchya, so basically just improvise the best you can. Side note, the closest I’ve ever golfed out your way is The Bridges out near New Oxford, beautiful course.  With a few exceptions I pretty much just stick to the Lancaster County courses. I had a baby this past year so didn’t get to play much. Actually, let me be clear, my wife had a baby ha. Golf season will be here before you know it!

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10 minutes ago, Blizzard of 93 said:

Please tell this to CTP & the MDT observer!

The MDT observer’s job is simple today....He needs to put .3 inches at least on the books for our 20 inch snow February!

(I can’t wait to see the inevitable “T” that gets put down tonight....)

Haha yes you know it’s coming. They already recorded a T for yesterday’s snowfall but that is probably accurate since it ended at midnight. We anxiously await today’s report, perhaps pull an all-nighter to see the official post-midnight report. 

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5 minutes ago, Mount Joy Snowman said:

Haha yes you know it’s coming. They already recorded a T for yesterday’s snowfall but that is probably accurate since it ended at midnight. We anxiously await today’s report, perhaps pull an all-nighter to see the official post-midnight report. 

I think CTP should work Blizz into one of their AFD's...like they did with Ca$htown.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Cashtown_Coop said:

Snow is the most important thing in life and you have to do everything humanly possible to measure every flake.   #noexcuses

Serious answer, luckily with my work I get to measure every storm.   I have one of most flexible winter schedules but when summer hits I may work 90 to 100 days straight with no days off.  (Golf course superintendent)

Small world. Before I became a truck driver, I worked on a golf course at Saucon Valley Country Club in Bethlehem. I was considering going to Penn State for agronomy courses/ a degree to advance, but the trucking bug bit, and here I am...

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32 minutes ago, Blizzard of 93 said:

Please tell this to CTP & the MDT observer!

The MDT observer’s job is simple today....He needs to put .3 inches at least on the books for our 20 inch snow February!

(I can’t wait to see the inevitable “T” that gets put down tonight....)

The airport sits next to the river at 310ft so that hurts on marginal events.  That has to been on the lower end of the elevation scale for the lsv area.  

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31 minutes ago, Mount Joy Snowman said:

Gotchya, so basically just improvise the best you can. Side note, the closest I’ve ever golfed out your way is The Bridges out near New Oxford, beautiful course.  With a few exceptions I pretty much just stick to the Lancaster County courses. I had a baby this past year so didn’t get to play much. Actually, let me be clear, my wife had a baby ha. Golf season will be here before you know it!

Don’t remind me.   I have new ownership this season so it should be interesting.  They’ve bought me some new equipment already so that part is good.  

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13 minutes ago, Voyager said:

Small world. Before I became a truck driver, I worked on a golf course at Saucon Valley Country Club in Bethlehem. I was considering going to Penn State for agronomy courses/ a degree to advance, but the trucking bug bit, and here I am...

I’ve actually considered getting my cdl if I moved on from the course course industry.   

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1 hour ago, Mount Joy Snowman said:

Woke up at 3am and took a peak out the window, all non-paved surfaces solidly covered, had to be at least 1/2”. All mostly gone this morning. Hard to know what to put in the books. I used to have situations like this being at work all day and knowing accumulating snow fell but then by the time I got home it was gone, would always try and estimate from other sources in those instances. How do the official reporters on the board handle these situations?  Thanks!

I was up until 2:40am when I flipped back to rain. I measured  .7" at the time I flipped. Still have a light veil of slush in a few spots now.

Season total is 32.7"

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53 minutes ago, Mount Joy Snowman said:

Gotchya, so basically just improvise the best you can. Side note, the closest I’ve ever golfed out your way is The Bridges out near New Oxford, beautiful course.  With a few exceptions I pretty much just stick to the Lancaster County courses. I had a baby this past year so didn’t get to play much. Actually, let me be clear, my wife had a baby ha. Golf season will be here before you know it!

 

40 minutes ago, Mount Joy Snowman said:

Haha yes you know it’s coming. They already recorded a T for yesterday’s snowfall but that is probably accurate since it ended at midnight. We anxiously await today’s report, perhaps pull an all-nighter to see the official post-midnight report. 

I recorded a T for yesterday (which is what I had) so I would fully expect them to report that. 

I also wonder with this being such a marginal situation with temps if they record a trace total - being on the river doesn't help in these events. Many times on my way to work I'll see virtually nothing between Columbia and Washington Boro - it just isn't quite cold enough.

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26 minutes ago, Cashtown_Coop said:

The airport sits next to the river at 310ft so that hurts on marginal events.  That has to been on the lower end of the elevation scale for the lsv area.  

Yeah I hate that the bulk of our local climatology is recorded and viewed through the lens of that site. Don’t feel it represents the area very well but what are you gonna do. 

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I never saw it go completely over to snow before I went to bed at 1:00.  And, when I woke up this morning around 8:30 there wasn't a flake of evidence anywhere on the ground, sidewalk, or mulch.  Instead, I recorded 0.02" of rain before midnight and 0.19" of rain since midnight.  Temp did get down to a low of 32.4 degrees back around 7:00am.  All in all, a great February for snowfall and snowpack.  

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8 minutes ago, Itstrainingtime said:

 

I recorded a T for yesterday (which is what I had) so I would fully expect them to report that. 

I also wonder with this being such a marginal situation with temps if they record a trace total - being on the river doesn't help in these events. Many times on my way to work I'll see virtually nothing between Columbia and Washington Boro - it just isn't quite cold enough.

Yeah you aren’t kidding. I’ve had a couple occasions where i was raining down at my house and drove to the top of the ridge where it was snowing, despite only being a couple hundred feet higher. It’s pretty rare but it does happen. See my prior comment for my thoughts about MDT being our main climo site ha. 

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36 minutes ago, Mount Joy Snowman said:

Yeah you aren’t kidding. I’ve had a couple occasions where i was raining down at my house and drove to the top of the ridge where it was snowing, despite only being a couple hundred feet higher. It’s pretty rare but it does happen. See my prior comment for my thoughts about MDT being our main climo site ha. 

I grew up in Southern Lancaster County (Pequea township) and that area has its own microclimate as well. It's actually quite fascinating. Many hills with elevations between 500 and 900 feet in the Southern End of the county. WGAL will post maps with them getting the lowest amounts just because they're farther south....but most people don't realize that there are often some jackpots in snowfall down there (particularly the Mt. Nebo/Martic Township area).

I even remember several occasions each winter where I would have snow on the top of my hill and go a couple hundred feet lower to find they maybe had a dusting or nothing.  And wind? That's a whole different story....other than WINDY during storms. I still have never lived somewhere that has the thunderstorms Solanco has. It really is quite the microclimate.

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1 hour ago, TugHillMatt said:

I grew up in Southern Lancaster County (Pequea township) and that area has its own microclimate as well. It's actually quite fascinating. Many hills with elevations between 500 and 900 feet in the Southern End of the county. WGAL will post maps with them getting the lowest amounts just because they're farther south....but most people don't realize that there are often some jackpots in snowfall down there (particularly the Mt. Nebo/Martic Township area).

I even remember several occasions each winter where I would have snow on the top of my hill and go a couple hundred feet lower to find they maybe had a dusting or nothing.  And wind? That's a whole different story....other than WINDY during storms. I still have never lived somewhere that has the thunderstorms Solanco has. It really is quite the microclimate.

Nice, I have an uncle that lives in Pequea Township but he is in the northern end right along the conestoga river. I’ve been in West Hempfield for over 25 years now. You are so right about the elevation down that way. I’m a bit of an elevation fanatic, weird I know haha. There isn’t a topo map I haven’t studied. So many high hills down there. I really believe even most people who live in lanacster have no clue about the southern end. Solanco is such a massive school district area-wise. Thanks for chiming in! 

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3 minutes ago, Mount Joy Snowman said:

Nice, I have an uncle that lives in Pequea Township but he is in the northern end right along the conestoga river. I’ve been in West Hempfield for over 25 years now. You are so right about the elevation down that way. I’m a bit of an elevation fanatic, weird I know haha. There isn’t a topo map I haven’t studied. So many high hills down there. I really believe even most people who live in lanacster have no clue about the southern end. Solanco is such a massive school district area-wise. Thanks for chiming in! 

Thanks for the response! I grew up right where the ridges and valleys start right off of Millwood Rd. Graduated from Penn Manor - There were several times where our end was getting pounded with snow but Penn Manor wouldn't close because up on the northern tip in Millersville there was nothing.

Beautiful views! Southern Lancaster County is a hidden secret/treasure...although there are some very "off" and backwards thinking people that live there. But, my love for nature surely started from growing up there. 

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