Central PA Winter 25/26 Discussion and Obs

[Mount Joy Snowman]

Low of 19. My snowpack is a solid rock glacier, not sure a couple cloudy days in the mid to upper 30s is going to do much to it. Now, if we get sunny and 40 by the end of the week that will certainly help but still, this thing has staying power. 

[Voyager]

1 minute ago, Mount Joy Snowman said:

Low of 19. My snowpack is a solid rock glacier, not sure a couple cloudy days in the mid to upper 30s is going to do much to it. Now, if we get sunny and 40 by the end of the week that will certainly help but still, this thing has staying power. 

It sure does, and each day that it stays is another day that I don't want to even leave my house. As it is, I generally open up the kitchen curtains each day to let light into the house, but right now, I've been keeping them closed as the view of the backyard depresses me.

[anotherman]

I think it will be gone soon.

[mahantango#1]

1 hour ago, Yardstickgozinya said:

The good news is NWS has Increased their confidence in a winter storm during Sun-Mon timeframe.  The bad news is NWS has lowered confidence in the occurrence of precipitation Sun-Mon. Once again they're getting all the angles covered. 

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service State College PA
444 AM EST Tue Feb 10 2026

.WHAT HAS CHANGED...
* Increased confidence in winter storm during Sun-Mon timeframe
* Holding off on any winter weather advisories for possible ice
  accums for E/NE this evening-SW later tonight

&&

.KEY MESSAGES...
1) Light precip possible later today and this evening, with
light post-frontal snow showers and gusty winds over the
Alleghenies later tonight through Wednesday night.

2) Lowered confidence in occurrence of precipitation Sun-Mon.
Confidence in timing of possible precip is slightly higher.
Confidence in precip types/amounts remain low

 I have now lowered my confidence in them as they have increased confidence in lowering confidence.

[Yardstickgozinya]

22 minutes ago, Voyager said:

It sure does, and each day that it stays is another day that I don't want to even leave my house. As it is, I generally open up the kitchen curtains each day to let light into the house, but right now, I've been keeping them closed as the view of the backyard depresses me.

This baby looks pretty sweet. 

[Mount Joy Snowman]

1 hour ago, Voyager said:

It sure does, and each day that it stays is another day that I don't want to even leave my house. As it is, I generally open up the kitchen curtains each day to let light into the house, but right now, I've been keeping them closed as the view of the backyard depresses me.

Sorry to hear that Voyager but man I am so far from being able to relate to this post. The thought of looking out my window in early February and being depressed because my yard is white is so foreign to me I don’t even know where to begin haha. But to each their own. Hang in there pal. 

[Jns2183]

Well, I'll be d***** . Looks like that might be able to sneak in here. 

It is showing returns but I look up to see blue sky

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[Blizzard of 93]

0z Canadian is still on team CTP snow chance for Sunday.

[Blizzard of 93]

The 6z Euro just made a good change & is now on team snow chance for Sunday st the end of its 144 run.

[Blizzard of 93]

6z EPS & 6z AI EPS are on board for the Sunday into Monday snow chance. Reminder that the regular EPS only goes out to 144 hours, but the AI EPS goes out up to 15 days.

[Voyager]

1 hour ago, Mount Joy Snowman said:

Sorry to hear that Voyager but man I am so far from being able to relate to this post. The thought of looking out my window in early February and being depressed because my yard is white is so foreign to me I don’t even know where to begin haha. But to each their own. Hang in there pal. 

I hear ya, and yes, to each their own. While I can't totally relate to loving cold weather, it's cool that we all have our preferences.

[ChescoWx]

Here in the philly burbs of Chester County 3 stations set a new record for consecutive days below freezing at 17 days through yesterday. The old record was set way back in 1961.

[pasnownut]

2 hours ago, Mount Joy Snowman said:

Low of 19. My snowpack is a solid rock glacier, not sure a couple cloudy days in the mid to upper 30s is going to do much to it. Now, if we get sunny and 40 by the end of the week that will certainly help but still, this thing has staying power. 

was thinking the same.  Like yours, mine is rather solid and we'll see how it holds, but its gonna take a good bit of work.

[ChescoWx]

You think it's been a cold start to February? You are correct! Here in Chester County PA with data back to 1893 this is the 3rd coldest on record as only 1895 (11.2 avg. temp) and 1905 (18.4) were colder. We finally see most spots getting above freezing today but still at least 5 degrees below normal levels. Tomorrow will be our warmest day of the work week with highs well into the 30's. We turn colder again to close out the week, and we could see some snow arrive or Sunday with a likely change to rain by Monday.

[mahantango#1]

Decided to walk down to the creek and take some pictures while there still ice on the creek. That was the easy part. What wasn't easy was walking through that snowpack. Cardio workout for sure was not anticipated. I wonder just how thick the ice is? Questions remain. How long will the ice stay with warmer temperatures forecast? Will the ice slowly melt away? Will we get more snow adding to more water content to the snowpack? Or will we get a big sudden thaw with a huge rain storm? And then will we get the ice breaking up and producing ice jams and flooding? These questions will be answered in the coming weeks.

[canderson]

Saturday’s sunny and 42 will feel like July. 

[Voyager]

3 minutes ago, canderson said:

Saturday’s sunny and 42 will feel like July. 

The fact that I'm loading the truck in just my hoodie and not the hoodie AND a winter coat speaks volumes. It's actually nice out, all things considered. 

[Itstrainingtime]

32.0 currently at home. Seems clouds are helping mitigate much melting so far today despite the "warmer" temp. 

[str8liner]

47 degrees feels like I should be doing something outside today. Sadly, the snow makes that pretty much impossible.

[Yardstickgozinya]

6 hours ago, Jns2183 said:

It is showing returns but I look up to see blue sky

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The sun wasn't even close to coming up when I had posted this but it was all, but maybe thirty minutes after I posted that everything completely dissipated. NWS did mention in their forecast discussion that very little snow was reaching the ground from that first wave. 

[Mount Joy Snowman]

Outside of the CMC, the 12z model suite is less than inspiring for the late weekend threat, to put it mildly.

[Itstrainingtime]

7 hours ago, Mount Joy Snowman said:

Low of 19. My snowpack is a solid rock glacier, not sure a couple cloudy days in the mid to upper 30s is going to do much to it. Now, if we get sunny and 40 by the end of the week that will certainly help but still, this thing has staying power. 

Isn't sleet wonderful?

I know it can be demoralizing when we change over, but my goodness it can do absolute wonders for a snowpack. Outside of February 2010, all of our long-lasting packs have had a lot of sleet/freezing rain embedded in it. 10" of snow with a ton of sleet will last so much longer than 24" of cold powder. We've reaped the benefit of those hours of sleet we had back on 1/25. Even with the cold temps we've had since, the ground would look far different today without that sleet.  

[Itstrainingtime]

MU on the upcoming weekend:

 During the second half of the weekend, there has been more unwarranted "hype" in recent days regarding a potential winter storm. The odds of that actually happening are very low. Instead, a developing storm system over the southern Plains on Saturday will likely track due east through Sunday and exit into the Atlantic somewhere between South Carolina and northern Florida. Either way, that's too far south for any precipitation to reach northern MD or southern PA, and Sunday will likely just turn out partly-to-mostly cloudy and dry with highs in the 40s. Behind the system, early next week should turn out equally as nice with mostly sunny skies accompanying an even bigger moderating trend. Essentially, the weather is going to be a "snoozefest" for at least the next week, and our moderate-to-extreme drought conditions are only going to worsen.

[MAG5035]

Nice day with 48ºF here currently. Some melting but dewpoint’s around 30 and it’s not all that windy today. Eastern PA holding onto chillier temps as progged,  while temps did overachieve in the central and western parts of the state today. SW PA is way into the 50s. 

I see a lot of guidance the last couple runs are killing the storm threat for the weekend taking it way south, but I’m gonna remain indifferent to that prospect for now. Sure it could happen, but we’re also currently in that time range where models like to do such things for whatever reason. We went through a good bit of this with the 1/25 storm as well. So I’m not writing anything off yet.