E PA/NJ/DE Winter 2025-26 Obs/Discussion

[ChescoWx]

10 hours ago, RedSky said:

Unfortunately there are no official tallies for small towns like doylestown perkasie and quakertown

Actually there is historical NWS Cooperative data for some of those spots I did a quick look with some select snow examples:

• Sellersville since 1948 (looks like snow since 1990's) - 24.4" of snow so far this season / 2013-14 - 58.3" season snow
• Doylestown 1899-2017 - 1977-78 - 56.4" of snow
• Quakertown 1884 - 1969
• Palm 1941-1922

Check out https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/request/coop/fe.phtml?network=PACLIMATE  if anyone else is interested in some local official NWS amounts etc.

 

 

 

[Heisy]

Such a tight gradient on all the eps members etc because of how wound up the system is. I feel like we’d need a pretty large shift for this range to get the city in the goods, but I still think we can muster few inches if we get lucky

[ChescoWx]

10 hours ago, The Iceman said:

Hm I have no idea, my dad’s records only go back to 1977, he started keeping track as a science project in high school and just kept with it… not really a weather nerd like me but he loves snow lol. In our combined tally of snow totals, 95-1996 was our snowiest winter at 75.6”. Do you happen to know what the tally for 57-58 was? 

I put the link above there are some NWS spots around that area - I grew up in NE Philly so check out:

• Neshaminy Falls 1915-Present - 24.5" of snow so far this season
• George School 1906-1978
• Southhampton 1979-2013

[The Iceman]

Another side note, but crossing the Delaware into Trenton this morning I noticed it's almost completely frozen all the way across. I have to imagine by the end of this weekend it will be completely frozen. That doesn't happen often. Will have to watch for Ice jams by the falls whenever the thaw comes.

[CoolHandMike]

1 hour ago, The Iceman said:

Another side note, but crossing the Delaware into Trenton this morning I noticed it's almost completely frozen all the way across. I have to imagine by the end of this weekend it will be completely frozen. That doesn't happen often. Will have to watch for Ice jams by the falls whenever the thaw comes.

The Skook out by me was ~50% frozen over yesterday when I drove down River Road north of Rt. 12. This is north of the Tulpehocken, which is fed from Blue Marsh, so I don't know if it's frozen downstream. Might have to go check it out later today.

I also want to see if anybody's out at Ontelawnee ice fishing. That's something I've always wanted to do, and this weekend might be a good weekend for it.

[Chadzachadam]

21 minutes ago, CoolHandMike said:

The Skook out by me was ~50% frozen over yesterday when I drove down River Road north of Rt. 12. This is north of the Tulpehocken, which is fed from Blue Marsh, so I don't know if it's frozen downstream. Might have to go check it out later today.

I also want to see if anybody's out at Ontelawnee ice fishing. That's something I've always wanted to do, and this weekend might be a good weekend for it.

Can confirm the Skook is frozen in Philly and looks very cool

[Duca892]

Probably wrong but think this is the 2nd run in a row the GFS has a clipper trying to spring a miller B around 260hrs. Pretty boring until then 

[Birds~69]

Would take a 1-3"/2-4" (refresher) deal for Sunday and be happy. Getting shutout would kinda irk me...means we wasted a full week of cold. 

17F @ 12:10pm

[zenmsav6810]

I got some snow squalls last night. Did anyone else?

[RedSky]

43 minutes ago, Birds~69 said:

Would take a 1-3"/2-4" (refresher) deal for Sunday and be happy. Getting shutout would kinda irk me...means we wasted a full week of cold. 

17F @ 12:10pm

This is all covered in the weenie handbook chapter 12 historic cold periods are dry and dull with the proverbial lull, old timers will say "it's too cold to snow"
 

 

[zenmsav6810]

Its interesting that later frames of NAM bring the low substantially west compared to the GFS. 

[The Iceman]

BTW OP runs from what I saw, not what we wanted to see at 12z. I'm going down with the ship though, WPC as well as the local NWS have harped on 72 hours out being the period where many of these storms drift NW. It's so friggin close. I don't know how anyone from 95 E, can throw in the towel, even if it's only a few inches. Also some winters it just wants to snow... I still think this comes back some.... at least I know if we were bullseyed right now it would 100% drift NW 

[JTA66]

I said I'd give it until 12z tomorrow, but obviously not seeing any encouraging trends today. Not ready to pull the plug, but I am looking around the room for the outlet.

[mattinpa]

12 minutes ago, JTA66 said:

I said I'd give it until 12z tomorrow, but obviously not seeing any encouraging trends today. Not ready to pull the plug, but I am looking around the room for the outlet.

Same here. Not expecting anything at this point but keeping an eye out.

[Birds~69]

45 minutes ago, RedSky said:

This is all covered in the weenie handbook chapter 12 historic cold periods are dry and dull with the proverbial lull, old timers will say "it's too cold to snow"
 

 

Yeah..yeah I know.

Point being it wouldn't take much to make me happy w/all the mounds already lying around which aren't going anywhere. (Refreshers) A squall/wind, few nickel and dime events or heavy flurries would keep me content... 

18F

[The Iceman]

EPS says don't throw in the towel for a pack refresher

 

[Hurricane Agnes]

15 hours ago, The Iceman said:

I was thinking this in Trenton today…absolute nightmare still! But other areas are really stacked high too. Another foot even and it’ll be really dangerous driving around. I saw dump trucks full of snow going somewhere, I know there’s a snow dump off Perry street in Trenton. Do they still dump it in the Delaware river? I think I remember that being a thing before.

Back during the '96 storm, Philly was dumping so much snow in the Schuylkill that it got blocked up, so they had to dump in the Delaware.  There are a few "infamous" pics of that still around.

Then a week or two later, the temps went up into the 60s with overruning rain and the Schuykill flood pretty badly.   I remember when the water finally went down and I was driving to work along it and you could see the water lines high up on the plowed snow mounds... plus there was a huge tree trunk that got wedged near the top of an arch of one of the stone railroad bridges that goes over the river!  That tree trunk was there for months and they eventually did remove it.

They have now been using huge "snow melter" trucks to melt the snow - at least downtown.  They are doing that today around City Hall.  I remember seeing one after I think, the 2010 or 2014 snow.

[JTA66]

Both the 18z NAM and RGEM have snow in Norfolk at the end of their runs.

If I were to extrapolate that, it’s usually a bad sign for us as that tends to suggest suppression/OTS.

But I’m not going to extrapolate it, so never mind.

[Violentweatherfan]

4 minutes ago, JTA66 said:

Both the 18z NAM and RGEM have snow in Norfolk at the end of their runs.

If I were to extrapolate that, it’s usually a bad sign for us as that tends to suggest suppression/OTS.

But I’m not going to extrapolate it, so never mind.

What are your thoughts regarding the possibility of cutbacks (lack of funding) to NOAA/NWS impacting model data early on and then getting better sampling later. Therefore odd model solutions 

[Chadzachadam]

NBM throws a few inches back towards Philly on Sunday and has most of South Jersey with over 6"

I do think we likely end up with something here, Lehigh Valley might be out of luck but Philly and immediate burbs have a decent chance 

[zenmsav6810]

OP GFS only through 96 hrs is east. 

[Hurricane Agnes]

10 minutes ago, zenmsav6810 said:

OP GFS only through 96 hrs is east. 

The 18z AIGFS tries to tuck it in before it boots it OTS.

[zenmsav6810]

1 minute ago, Hurricane Agnes said:

The 18z AIGFS tries to tuck it in and before it boots it OTS.

Do or do not... there is no try! 

[Birds~69]

31 minutes ago, JTA66 said:

Both the 18z NAM and RGEM have snow in Norfolk at the end of their runs.

If I were to extrapolate that, it’s usually a bad sign for us as that tends to suggest suppression/OTS.

But I’m not going to extrapolate it, so never mind.

I'm a big fan of not talking about things which don't fit my agenda and screw me over. Good move! I'm all for this...

15F @ 5:20pm

Predicted low: I guess I'll have to cancel my overnight outdoor activities... 

[PhilsFanDrew]

I've seen enough, nothing for LV this weekend.  Good luck to the SEPA/NJ/DE folks.  

[Duca892]

GFS for the 3rd run in a row trying to pop something around the 8th

[Duca892]

At least let GFS looks like our next period is 7th/9th. Been pretty consistently showing something 

[Birds~69]

This will drive ChescoWx nuts. He'll whip out 5 different spreadsheets in a jiffy to prove this guy wrong...

Today, from the Fox29 facebook page:

10F @ 6pm