Central PA Winter 25/26 Discussion and Obs

[AccuChris]

After 12” of sleet and snow, Im spent


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[anotherman]

After 12” of sleet and snow, Im spent


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This looks like my neighborhood.

[AccuChris]

This looks like my neighborhood.

Howdy neighbor lol


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[Ruin]

about 13 inchs before the sleet started then changed back over we hit just over 13 again then more sleet i ddint measure again after that 

[AccuChris]

As noted, 18z Euro drumming up a doozy next weekend. GFS had it for several days but has lost it the last couple days


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[MAG5035]

Got out and did some measurements with the lull in the action, I’m at 11.6” right now. The comma head stuff is on the doorstep so we’ll see how much additional I can muster. Temp is still only 10ºF. 

This snow is very powdery but it is also dense, which is typical of Gulf storms. Never mixed but I do think the ratios suffered a bit due to the warm nose. Being so high up that would have affected growth in the 700mb layer which was likely where the best lift was. Given the heavy rates basically all day today this could have easily been more. I did see a couple 13 and 14” totals reported elsewhere in Blair. 

[Voyager]

8 minutes ago, MAG5035 said:

Got out and did some measurements with the lull in the action, I’m at 11.6” right now. The comma head stuff is on the doorstep so we’ll see how much additional I can muster. Temp is still only 10ºF. 

This snow is very powdery but it is also dense, which is typical of Gulf storms. Never mixed but I do think the ratios suffered a bit due to the warm nose. Being so high up that would have affected growth in the 700mb layer which was likely where the best lift was. Given the heavy rates basically all day today this could have easily been more. I did see a couple 13 and 14” totals reported elsewhere in Blair. 

Does that comma head move east or lift northeast. Is there a chance I see some action out of it, or is the dryslot it for us in east?

[MAG5035]

4 minutes ago, Voyager said:

Does that comma head move east or lift northeast. Is there a chance I see some action out of it, or is the dryslot it for us in east.

I think you’ll see some of it up that way, perhaps an inch or so if the stuff in western PA holds together good. Less sure once south of about Harrisburg, might not see much additional down there. This kind of skirts ENE, and then westerly flow kicks in eventually and that will relegate what’s left to western PA and the Laurels most likely. 

[Jns2183]

Was talking about that with my wife earlier, can't recall an extended stretch this cold, and the nights may be able to go even lower with this snowpack if we go clear and calm.  Get ready for pipes bursting.

2/15/15 to 2/22/15
I remember driving to hershey hospital at 3am for my daughter to be born

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[CarlislePaWx]

In Carlisle, at 8:00pm...the skies were cloudy and no precipitation was occurring.  During the time between my last observation at 5:30 and the present, I recorded an additional 0.1" of sleet bringing the total sleet accumulation to 0.9", before the dry slot arrived and cut off the precip.  This brings my storm total of snow and sleet to 7.2".  I just melted down the sleet and measured a total liquid of 0.43".  With 0.9" of sleet producing 0.43" of liquid combines for a ratio of 4.8 : 1.  The 6.0" of snow melted down to 0.70" and produced a liquid equivalent ratio of 8.6:1 .  The total melted qpf for the storm thus far is 1.13".  My board is cleared once again and I'm ready to record whatever additional snowfall occurs a few hours from now.  My current temperature has risen to 14.7 degrees and is approaching the midnight high of 15.1 degrees.  I'll be back later if any additional snowfall takes place.

[Voyager]

14 minutes ago, MAG5035 said:

I think you’ll see some of it up that way, perhaps an inch or so if the stuff in western PA holds together good. Less sure once south of about Harrisburg, might not see much additional down there. This kind of skirts ENE, and then westerly flow kicks in eventually and that will relegate what’s left to western PA and the Laurels most likely. 

Thanks Mag!

[canderson]

As I was out clearing snow it was freezing into cement as I went. 
 

I highly recommend cleaning now  come morning, no way it’s moveable  

This has to have been a 12-13” storm here.   

 

[Mount Joy Snowman]

9 minutes ago, Jns2183 said:

2/15/15 to 2/22/15
I remember driving to hershey hospital at 3am for my daughter to be born

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Ah yes, I should have remembered Feb. of 2015, have quite the write-up about it in my spreadsheet.  Should be fun to see how this stretch compares. 

[canderson]

14 minutes ago, Jns2183 said:

2/15/15 to 2/22/15
I remember driving to hershey hospital at 3am for my daughter to be born

Sent from my SM-S731U using Tapatalk
 

I have zero recollection of this at all somehow - ha! 

[Itstrainingtime]

6 minutes ago, canderson said:

I have zero recollection of this at all somehow - ha! 

You were probably in NYC.

[Mount Joy Snowman]

6 minutes ago, Itstrainingtime said:

You were probably in NYC.

Or DC......or London.....or.......

[canderson]

8 minutes ago, Itstrainingtime said:

You were probably in NYC.

You know, I checked our playbill binder and we were for some of those dates LOL

[AllWeather]

Yeah, that’ll work.


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[canderson]

2 minutes ago, AllWeather said:

Yeah, that’ll work.


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We’d somehow still flip to sleet …. lol 

[NepaJames8602]

The lull has hit here in the Poconos, so now was a great time to get outside. It stayed 100% snow the entire time here, with the sleet staying down s.e towards the Lehigh Valley. That im grateful for. The nam even had me riding the line for a few runs yesterday, that was a scare. Overall, a very nice storm. The rates actually werent that impressive up here though. Mainly very small/ fine flakes, moderate snow, with heavier bouts time to time. This event was one of the coldest storms that I can rememember, temps all day ranged from 1 to 4 degrees. I dipped the yard stick, right around 12.0" give or take for this event so far. Albeit, extremely hard to measure with the winds howling up here. Looking over obs, general Pocono accumlations so far looks like  12.0" to 15.0" area wide. I guess we will see if we can tack on some more overnight. Overall snow depth now averaging 15.5" to 16.0" when including previous snow pack. Temp is now a balmy 10 degrees and windy as heck, gust up to 35 to 40mph. Its for sure deep winter out there. Seasonal total to date is now 48.5"

[Voyager]

Starting to get some precipitation again. Thought it would be snow, but it's still sleet.

[Yardstickgozinya]

I was a little late getting out there for my second measurement at 8:00PM so there was surely some compaction, but I added 1.75 of sleet and snow after I brushed off initial measurement at 11:00AM of 6.375 for a total 8.125 of snow and sleet today. Now that said, I walked over to my neighbor's and took a one time measurement at 8:00PM off his open concrete slab, and measure'd. 8.5" that i'm sure has got squashed down from the sleet.  The first 2 pictures are from my backyard.  The second two picture or from my neighbors concrete slab. So maybe I did a little better than I initially thought. 

Below is my neighbor's concrete slab. 

 

[Yardstickgozinya]

6 hours ago, Jns2183 said:

Camp hill. I got crushed this morning more than most. I had 8.5" by 11am and 10" by noon, the sleet hit for an hour but it mixed with snow enough I picked up another .5" by 1. That sleet line crashed and I was just north of it for an hour and it was heavy snow, with huge flakes that added 2"

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 I'm glad you killed it out there today . On to the next hopefully. 

[Blizzard of 93]

I just looked out again & there is steady light snow falling currently despite nothing showing on radar.

[Yardstickgozinya]

14 hours ago, Yardstickgozinya said:

. All thought the snow does seem to be a nice powder I noticed about an hour ago that the snow is definitely making some noise on the hood of my snowsuit.I'm not saying we're changing anytime soon but I am surprised that these flakes have been making so much noise hitting my hood. 

I was definitely out in some heavy stuff myself this morning , but I think flake quality definitely killed my totals early compared to folks just north of me.   The sound of the flake doesn't lie. 

[Yardstickgozinya]

11 minutes ago, Blizzard of 93 said:

I just looked out again & there is steady light snow falling currently despite nothing showing on radar.

When I was out taking my measurements and the scooping off sleet there was a little light snow that change to sleet. I'm still adding trace amounts to my total. 

[CarlislePaWx]

I hope everyone is getting ready for the coldest temperature in Harrisburg since Jan 21, 1994 come this Saturday...

[MAG5035]

2 hours ago, canderson said:

We’d somehow still flip to sleet …. lol 

Considering we had the kind of mid-level pattern that we did for this storm, I’d say we did extremely well. 

Here’s 500mb heights and anomalies during the height of the storm today at the 18z initialization of the Euro.

 

And Mesowest 700mb heights and temp advection at 18z today. This drove the mix line and the NAM ended up handling that the best. No closed 700mb low and the 700mb trough was aligned way west. Weaker secondary surface development to the coast wasn’t going to affect this issue.

 

The fact that we had a forum wide warning event with widespread double digits while also being about as cold as you get at the surface for a synoptic event out of the Gulf is pretty remarkable with an alignment like that. At the end of the day this storm was mostly a moisture charged overrunning event with a very strong arctic air mass in place.