Central PA Winter 23/24

[Bubbler86]

2 minutes ago, Itstrainingtime said:

Bubbler's Jacksonville Juggernaut is a wound up sub 990mb beast. At least there's that. 

Sounds like the makings of the excuse for a Florida road trip for you.   You can get into the eye and give us live pressure readings to make sure there is no missing data. 

[Itstrainingtime]

4 minutes ago, Bubbler86 said:

Sounds like the makings of the excuse for a Florida road trip for you.   You can get into the eye and give us live pressure readings to make sure there is no missing data. 

I have multiple extended family members living in and around Jacksonville. Trying to convince my wife to become Duvall proud! 

[Bubbler86]

If this panel does not scream snow, I am not sure what else we could hope for (snark).  When the high itself has lots 850's, that is worrisome.  LOL. 

[mitchnick]

7 minutes ago, Bubbler86 said:

If this panel does not scream snow, I am not sure what else we could hope for (snark).  When the high itself has lots 850's, that is worrisome.  LOL. 

Doesn't scream snow, but does want to make me scream!

[mitchnick]

Explanation of why mid-late February-March has a shot.

 
https://www.americanwx.com/bb/topic/59779-winter-202324-mediumlong-range-discussion/?do=findComment&comment=7185737

[mitchnick]

Gefs creeping precip/snow north as of 168hrs fwiw.

[Chris78]

41 minutes ago, Bubbler86 said:

If this panel does not scream snow, I am not sure what else we could hope for (snark).  When the high itself has lots 850's, that is worrisome.  LOL. 

The entire set up is wonky. I would suspect though if the storm does come north there would be a stripe of snow on the North and West side. 

With Models always underestimating heights at range my guess is this storm comes north 

Might be rain but who knows ......

[Bubbler86]

1 minute ago, Chris78 said:

The entire set up is wonky. I would suspect though if the storm does come north there would be a stripe of snow on the North and West side. 

With Models always underestimating heights at range my guess is this storm comes north 

Might be rain but who knows ......

Could definitely make its own cold air from above and really that small batch of 850's under 0 over us sort of depicts that.... just kind of crazy to be thinking snow with 850's failed into Canada. 

[canderson]

1 hour ago, Itstrainingtime said:

Bubbler's Jacksonville Juggernaut is a wound up sub 990mb beast. At least there's that. 

First named storm of the tropical season? Sure! 

[MAG5035]

I’ve stayed fairly quiet the last few days just watching things and not jumping headlong onto the snow train (yet). My last pattern related post Thursday afternoon preceded all those monster snow maps of the weeklies/control/etc that followed it. 

I’ll start by saying I do think we’ll get to where we want to be pattern wise but the big question for me is the timeframe in which it takes for that to happen next month. Kind of addressed this a bit last week, at least regarding the MJO. We’ve managed to get into phase 7 but most guidance  backtrack it towards and perhaps back into 6. None of the 15 day guidance makes it into 8 currently during that range but does set it up for heading that way. The extended stuff gets it there  (GEFS extended, Euro weeklies) by about mid-month. So we’ll see how that evolves. I feel we need to carry a stronger pulse into those phases to eventually shuffle into the pattern alignment we’re looking for to go with what should an active southern stream. Daily SOI index is showing stronger, more sustained negative values which is more of the ballpark of where it should be given the Nino status from an SST standpoint (strong). Continuation of that would bode well for an eventual run into the colder phases. We try to nail down these pattern transitions, and typically they do eventually come… but often in some kind of a delayed but not denied fashion. So I think that’s where were at with it, especially with the meandering/backtrack of the MJO. I’m personally looking at Valentines Day onward. 

The writings been on the wall with our Feb 5-6 storm IMO. I haven’t really been too keen on the potential storm being anywhere near our subforum and probably not even most of the Mid-Atlantic for a couple reasons. And trust me if i was… you would have heard from me about it. First reason is this commanding ridge into Canada is simply too far east. Trough drops down into the northeast in response to the building ridge and provide some cold air from that direction (far eastern Canada)  but we’re already on the backside of that trough. There’s nowhere for the southern stream wave to turn up so it’s likely going to shoot straight out until it’s way too far offshore to catch us when it turns. If we’re going to use a 2/6/10 type scenario for comparison, the highly anomalous ridging was set up thru western Canada.. with a ridge axis near the C-PA benchmark of going thru Boise, ID. Second reason is the elephant in the room most of the winter outside of the recent 10-14 day cold snap.. tons of warm air. 

Here’s a basic example from the 12z GEFS (2m temp anomalies).

That’s a 7 DAY average of 25-35+ above normal over a large portion of Canada. Big ridging in Canada typically does come with big + anomalies for there and displacement of cold air to the south to go with the low 500mb height anomalies undercutting. It’s what makes the 500mb height maps look good. The progged temp anomalies are just huge. We have the above freezing line (at the surface) reaching the southern shore of Hudson Bay around the timeframe of this storm. I just don’t know if the airmass undercutting the ridge is going to be cold enough. I do think the southern part of the Apps (esp SW VA, far eastern Tenn, and western NC) could see a big snowfall at higher elevation. Otherwise, it will ultimately depend on the evolution of the wave itself to manufacture cold air and also to try to pull down some actual colder low level air from northern New England/eastern Ontario to get snowfall down into the piedmont region. It is possible with a more wound up coastal low, and if this storm were able to turn some it probably would be enough to snow in some interior Mid-Atlantic spots outside of the coastal plain if precip got that far north. 

 

[MAG5035]

Also, I grade my winter here as a C- so far. What prevents me from calling it worse than a C grade is two winter storm warning verified events in 4 days (the second and biggest event to date being a straight cutter) and getting to Blue Knob two days while it was 100% open to snowboard all the natural snow on the slopes that aren’t open often or solid ice if they are. That all has since been completely wiped out and they’re closed today to fix the maybe 3 slopes they got left with any kind of base.

So yea other than the period of Jan 6-20, it’s been horrendous and the only part of that period that was actually cold was about the 15-20th. I’m a sustained cold pattern and snowpack retention type. 

[Itstrainingtime]

1 minute ago, MAG5035 said:

Also, I grade my winter here as a C- so far. What prevents me from calling it worse than a C grade is two winter storm warning verified events in 4 days (the second and biggest event to date being a straight cutter) and getting to Blue Knob two days while it was 100% open to snowboard all the natural snow on the slopes that aren’t open often or solid ice if they are. That all has since been completely wiped out and they’re closed today to fix the maybe 3 slopes they got left with any kind of base.

So yea other than the period of Jan 6-20, it’s been horrendous and the only part of that period that was cold was about the 15-20th. I’m a sustained cold pattern and snowpack retention type. 

At least 4 of us now with a C- (You, Me, Canderson, and MJS) and we got there for the same reasons. 

[mitchnick]

Probably is time to finally party with the Gefs. The good news is that 850 temps are normal and surface only a hair over on their way down. Time to buckle up and see what comes of it.

[canderson]

51 minutes ago, Itstrainingtime said:

At least 4 of us now with a C- (You, Me, Canderson, and MJS) and we got there for the same reasons. 

The last two winters received a NC, ie not complete. Even worse than a F. 

[KPITSnow]

51 minutes ago, Itstrainingtime said:

At least 4 of us now with a C- (You, Me, Canderson, and MJS) and we got there for the same reasons. 

Hey at least you have that. Outside of a few areas in the metro here that got raked by a lake band, Pittsburgh is on two straight years not even verifying an advisory event.

 

I would estimate IMBYi have maybe 9 inches for the year. 

[Bubbler86]

4 minutes ago, canderson said:

The last two winters received a NC, ie not complete. Even worse than a F. 

You might need to take a trip to see Brooklyn of 93. 

[Itstrainingtime]

6 minutes ago, KPITSnow said:

Hey at least you have that. Outside of a few areas in the metro here that got raked by a lake band, Pittsburgh is on two straight years not even verifying an advisory event.

 

I would estimate IMBYi have maybe 9 inches for the year. 

I'm at 10" for the season - 2 weeks ago I shoveled for the first time since 2021. 

[Wmsptwx]

Late February bruiser this year…calling it now. 

[Bubbler86]

Just now, Wmsptwx said:

Late February bruiser this year…calling it now. 

Did a Ladybug land on your shoe today? 

[Wmsptwx]

Just now, Bubbler86 said:

Did a Ladybug land on your shoe today? 

Lol….In all seriousness it’s just hopium bc I’m bored and want an event of some sort.

[mitchnick]

Anybody hear about this? It's a notice posted on Stormvista re the Euro.

[Bubbler86]

7 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

Anybody hear about this? It's a notice posted on Stormvista re the Euro.

Assuming that means they are going to be upgrading the control -OR- running all ensembles at a higher res?   I read the EC team is hosting some of the events at the currently running AMS conference. 

[mitchnick]

5 minutes ago, Bubbler86 said:

Assuming that means they are going to be upgrading the control -OR- running all ensembles at a higher res?   I read the EC team is hosting some of the events at the currently running AMS conference. 

Saw from NE thread they would probably be upgrading the resolution, but poster wasn't certain. 

[mitchnick]

Nice to see the Gfs has our first Mecs/Hecs at the end of the 18z run. 

[ChescoWx]

8 hours ago, TimB said:

What was the predominant p-type in those three Januaries?
 

What has been the predominant p-type in this one?

Snow was the more predominant p-type this December/January with 10.9" of snow compared to December 1978/January 1979 when only 8.7" of the precip was snow.

Of course 1996 was one of our snowiest winters with 47" of snow during December 1995/January 1996 and 27.7" during December 1977/Jan 78

[TimB]

6 minutes ago, ChescoWx said:

Snow was the more predominant p-type this December/January with 10.9" of snow compared to December 1978/January 1979 when only 8.7" of the precip was snow.

Of course 1996 was one of our snowiest winters with 47" of snow during December 1995/January 1996 and 27.7" during December 1977/Jan 78

My (correct) point is, nowadays when a winter month has a lot of precip, it’s almost a sure bet that most of it is rain. But two out of the three past winters you mentioned had wet months that were mostly snow. So in the past, an anomalously wet winter month could be rainy or snowy.

And snow has not been the predominant p-type this winter, lol.

Also, we were talking about January, why bring in December? Try to keep up.

[Jns2183]

My (correct) point is, nowadays when a winter month has a lot of precip, it’s almost a sure bet that most of it is rain. But two out of the three past winters you mentioned had wet months that were mostly snow. So in the past, an anomalously wet winter month could be rainy or snowy.
And snow has not been the predominant p-type this winter, lol. 

If you're going to post this at least do the research and pull snow/rain ratios for the years and give some statistical basis for your claims along with maybe a further breakdown to quantify it.

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

[TimB]

8 minutes ago, Jns2183 said:

If you're going to post this at least do the research and pull snow/rain ratios for the years and give some statistical basis for your claims along with maybe a further breakdown to quantify it.

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk
 

I was talking specifically about the three Januaries he mentioned, two of which were very snowy and the other wasn’t snowy, but part of another historic winter.

The three Januaries ahead of this one in precip totals in his area were all part of epic winters, and this one won’t be. To deny that is to obfuscate.

[Jns2183]

Here is the log adjusted snow: precipitation ratios from 1889 till present. January and February have not changed much at all by evidence of the r2 trend line. It's December carrying the load by far

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[Blizzard of 93]

6 hours ago, mitchnick said:

Probably is time to finally party with the Gefs. The good news is that 850 temps are normal and surface only a hair over on their way down. Time to buckle up and see what comes of it.

The 18z GEFS is really ready to party beginning by the 14th.