Central PA Winter 25/26 Discussion and Obs

[Voyager]

Snowstorm nooners with our heaviest rates so far...

Temp: 8

Accumulation: 8 inches.

[AccuChris]

Measured an impressive 10” here in Lebanon before it went to mostly sleet. Big flakes mixed in but mostly sleet now…bummer…with those amazing ratios and snowfall rates, easily could have doubled the snow amount




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[Jonesy56]

Who’s got a good current look at radar with correlation coefficient?


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[mitchnick]

5 minutes ago, Blizzard of 93 said:

When they mix or change, accumulating sleet will still count.

Long way to go 

And it'll flip back to snow.

[whiteout]

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Thanks, and Yup, explains it. Tucked into the Doubling Gap area there in extreme NW Cumberland county, we started mixing with sleet about 30mins ago. Guess the NAM was on to it, the only model that got the mixing up and past me. Bummer as many models were showing me at 12”+ easily. Had 7” prior changeover.

[Mount Joy Snowman]

2 minutes ago, Blizzard of 93 said:

When they mix or change, accumulating sleet will still count.

Long way to go 

Yes, I'm aware.  But he said the next closest guess was well above him, so unless MDT goes well over 10" (seems unlikely), he would be the winner.  That's why I said "likely win".  All good.

[Mount Joy Snowman]

6 minutes ago, Jns2183 said:

The current precipitation regime is a hybrid of partial melting-refreezing aloft and active low-level crystal growth, resulting in a sleet-needle mixture with significantly higher accumulation ratios than standard ice pellets. While the marginal +1.0^\circ\text{C} warm nose provides the energy to collapse snowflakes into dense sleet cores, the saturated sub-freezing head below supports independent crystal growth within the -3^\circ\text{C} to -5^\circ\text{C} needle habit window. These acicular needles act as a structural "filler" between the falling ice pellets, trapping additional air gaps and preventing the efficient packing typically seen with smooth, spherical sleet. This microphysical "scaffolding" pushes the sleet-to-liquid ratio (SLR) from a standard 2:1 or 3:1 up toward a crunchier 4:1 to 6:1 range, leading to a faster-accumulating, lower-density ice mat on the ground.

Made it to 10" before pingers

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You're a damn genius JNS!

[Itstrainingtime]

8 minutes ago, Blizzard of 93 said:

When they mix or change, accumulating sleet will still count.

Long way to go 

Was that you that sent in a snowfall total to WGAL? 

[canderson]

Can we take the GFS out back and shoot it? 

[canderson]

Measured 10”. Half sleet / snow now. 

[Blizzard of 93]

2 minutes ago, Mount Joy Snowman said:

Yes, I'm aware.  But he said the next closest guess was well above him, so unless MDT goes well over 10" (seems unlikely), he would be the winner.  That's why I said "likely win".  All good.

MDT is already at .92 precip as of noon with all snow recorded thus far.

Mix is imminent, so a couple of inches of sleet are not out of the question with observations to our south.

I think @canderson & both went with a little over 12 at MDT. I think we are both still alive in the contest, lol!

The guesses above 12 are likely out of it.

[mitchnick]

1 minute ago, canderson said:

Can we take the GFS out back and shoot it? 

Add the Euro, Ukie, Canadian, Eps...

[Blizzard of 93]

2 minutes ago, Itstrainingtime said:

Was that you that sent in a snowfall total to WGAL? 

Lol, no it wasn’t me, but we saw the Marysville number & the family applauded.

[Jns2183]

Can we take the GFS out back and shoot it? 

Not unless your willing to shoot the Euro and every model but the RRPS and NAM because they all were similar in the end

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[Voyager]

12 minutes ago, AccuChris said:

Measured an impressive 10” here in Lebanon before it went to mostly sleet. Big flakes mixed in but mostly sleet now…bummer…with those amazing ratios and snowfall rates, easily could have doubled the snow amount

I'm not doubting your observation, but the radars that I looked at all show the mix still down by the state line, and all snow north into Pennsylvania. Usually they are pretty good at showing where the demarcation is.

[canderson]

1 minute ago, Jns2183 said:

Not unless your willing to shoot the Euro and every model but the RRPS and NAM because they all were similar in the end

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Yea but the gfs has been garbage for half a year! 

IIRC the Canadian did get the warm nose up to Massachusetts a few runs. 

[Mount Joy Snowman]

9 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

And it'll flip back to snow.

Yes, it very well could but my fear is the precip will be dried up enough by then that any accumulations would be minimal, which seems to be what the short-term guidance hints at.  Would love to be wrong haha.

[Jns2183]

I'm fast approaching 11". It's a crazy heavy mix with visibility well less than a mile

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[Festus]

13 and heavy sleet but the visibility has dropped in the past 10 minutes.  Looks like some chewed up flakes amongst the ice pellets.

[ChescoWx]

We have very heavy snow between 11a and 12n while I was out snowblowing and shovelling - 2.3" fell during that hour we are now up to 9.8" for the day.

Moderate sleet now falling and the temp is up to 10.4

[anotherman]

Temp. 'up' to 13.

[Itstrainingtime]

5 minutes ago, Voyager said:

I'm not doubting your observation, but the radars that I looked at all show the mix still down by the state line, and all snow north into Pennsylvania. Usually they are pretty good at showing where the demarcation is.

Sleet/mix line is through Harrisburg. At least.

[Storm Clouds]

So is it going to just sleet the rest of the storm now? 

[str8liner]

Back to snow here YAY! 

Edit: Now its seesawing from sleet, to snow, now back to sleet, in a matter of minutes lol.

[CarlislePaWx]

At 12:15pm here in Carlisle...light to moderate sleet is falling with a few snowflakes mixed in...I'd say about 98% sleet and 2% snow.  The temperature is currently 10.9 degrees.  When I went to clear the board I took another measurement and saw that an additional 0.3" of snow/sleet had fallen.  So, between 11:00am and 12:15pm I recorded an additional 0.6" bringing the storm total to 6.3".  I'll have to wait until the end of the storm in order to determine the final qpf and SLR.  Also, I did the meltdown at 11:45 so I don't have the meltdown of the 0.3" of sleet that fell between 11:45 and 12:15pm.

[WmsptWx]

Snow appears to be re-emerging as the dominant precip type here. Just spent the last two hours shoveling. Didn't measure but it's a lot.

[2001kx]

1 minute ago, WmsptWx said:

Snow appears to be re-emerging as the dominant precip type here. Just spent the last two hours shoveling. Didn't measure but it's a lot.

Not in Clearfield any longer?

[Subliminal87]

Over here in my area REI in Mechanicsburg 8inches.  Some higher amounts in diets obviously.  
 

all sleet now.  Sounded like rain at first cause it was coming down hard. 

[Jns2183]

MDT is already at .92 precip as of noon with all snow recorded thus far.
Mix is imminent, so a couple of inches of sleet are not out of the question with observations to our south.
I think [mention=1156]canderson[/mention] & both went with a little over 12 at MDT. I think we are both still alive in the contest, lol!
The guesses above 12 are likely out of it.

The 3k nam from 0Z last night had them at 0.50" as of noon. Which seems to have been the theme of the name since Virginia. Correct with the thermals, horrible with qpf. Which is why total accumulation was off.

Also once the sleet started I hope everyone with boards took measurements and cleared board. Sleet on top of dry snow = big compression. To get accurate accumulation you have to measure the sleet portion of storm seperate

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[WmsptWx]

5 minutes ago, 2001kx said:

Not in Clearfield any longer?

Currently in Huntingdon county. Will be back in Clearfield at some point in the next year or so. 

 

To people wondering "Why?" I'm at SCI-Huntingdon doing a stay. Got caught f'n the mayor's wife and they threw me away. On my first day I beat up the King Dick and made him my bitch. This is his phone I use. He had a corrupt CO smuggle it in and as He Who Controls the Smack, Controls the Joint, I have a phone.