Central PA Spring 2026 Discussion/Obs Thread

[Ruin]

12 hours ago, pasnownut said:

Yeah this weeks "warmup" so far has been an epic fail.  Just looked and NWS has me in upper 40's today and tomorrow.  i memory serves a week ago I thought I'd be in the 60's and some said ticklin 70.  Regardless this is typical spring weather and while I HATE mud....we need the rain and looks like plenty of chances to suppress the spring wildfire worries.

Why i always bitch they can't get most things right jist 3 days or so out

[canderson]

Heavy rain. Good spring stuff. 

[Itstrainingtime]

Thunderstorm in progress here. Cats aren't happy.

[Mount Joy Snowman]

Just now, Itstrainingtime said:

Thunderstorm in progress here. Cats aren't happy.

Yep just saw my first lightning in quite a while. Heavy batch getting ready to roll through. Our dogs don’t love it either. 

[mahantango#1]

1.09 rain so far today. No thunder or lightning here.

[Blizzard of 93]

10 minutes ago, Mount Joy Snowman said:

Yep just saw my first lightning in quite a while. Heavy batch getting ready to roll through. Our dogs don’t love it either. 

Thunderstorms in Winter mean snow within 10 days according to the old time folklore!

[Blizzard of 93]

Here is our next window of Winter opportunity after the muted warmup.

[canderson]

Had some thunder but didn’t notice lightning. 

[AccuChris]

1.24” in the bucket today here in Lebanon


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[Mount Joy Snowman]

6 minutes ago, AccuChris said:

1.24” in the bucket today here in Lebanon


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Nothing even remotely close to that here. Looking at the radar throughout the day, I figured you guys to my north and west would see much bigger totals. 

[canderson]

.85” of rain today for me.  .6” of that was in an hour and half this evening. 

[MAG5035]

0.65” of rain here yesterday.

Eastern PA definitely looks to be denied a full torch this weekend as cool air damming, cloud cover and maritime flow off the Atlantic have a firm hold east of the mountains. Meanwhile from the Laurels westward, increasing breezy southwest flow is going to make for much warmer temps, likely making a run at 65-70 or so on Saturday. Sus Valley may eventually mix down 50s to near 60 later Saturday/Sat night as a weak frontal passage approaches. 

Mon-Wed is the real time frame where it looks quite warm, as it has looked consistently on models for like the last week. Tuesday is the best chance for at least the southern half of PA to make a run at 70ºF ahead of the next system. Some difference between Euro and GFS with the Euro being much more expansive in PA with the very warm temps and GFS more confined to southern PA. 

Much more uncertainty abound beyond that, big differences between the Euro and GFS. Euro has been way colder around the St Patty’s day timeframe and also has a storm on tonight’s 0z run. GFS bottles up cold air more in Canada and runs a further north storm track. Both models and ensembles develop the really negative WPO, which should put a lot more cold back in Canada. They’re also pretty firm on a pretty positive AO and NAO though, which would suggest cold intrusions into the US are limited and brief. Difference area is the PNA, where the Euro/ensembles (and Canadian) reverses a pretty negative PNA to positive to set up western ridging and a chance at the kind of storm it puts out at 0z tonight and holding a cold pattern more. The GFS op just keeps the PNA solidly negative and its ensembles do reflect the other models more with the reversal but is more neutral. I’m fairly pessimistic overall on any decent snow chances in that timeframe mainly due to the +NAO/AO, but building a western ridge even briefly would at least allow for a window to try to line something up. 

[Voyager]

1.21" yesterday for Tamaqua.

[mahantango#1]

55 minutes ago, Voyager said:

1.21" yesterday for Tamaqua.

1.15 here.

[Voyager]

I keep asking, but no one has really provided an answer. Why does EVERY sudden stratospheric warming event and the subsequent polar vortex disruption ALWAYS decend into the eastern US? 

Why not the West? 

Do the Rocky Mountains play a part in it?

https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/stratospheric-warming-begins-polar-vortex-core-descends-cold-into-united-states-canada-fa/

[mahantango#1]

[Blizzard of 93]

10 hours ago, Blizzard of 93 said:

Thunderstorms in Winter mean snow within 10 days according to the old time folklore!

Lol, the 0z Euro supports the folklore!

Hopefully this upcoming window can produce at least one more trackable snow chance.

I want 6.2 more inches of snow at MDT this season in order get the seasonal total to the 30 inch climo average.

The 0z Euro would deliver it. Give me this to verify & then I would be good with moving on to Spring.

[Itstrainingtime]

.63" of rain fell yesterday, .94" for the week. Air this morning is noticeably (to me) chillier than it was yesterday. I thought it felt humid, this morning it feels raw. Temp is 39 currently. 

 

[pasnownut]

11 hours ago, Mount Joy Snowman said:

Yep just saw my first lightning in quite a while. Heavy batch getting ready to roll through. Our dogs don’t love it either. 

add me to the first tboomer list.  nice rain and rumbles/flashes last night

 

I think drought talk will suppress as much as snow talk has.

Speaking of snow, look at 0z Euro.  Blizz may get one last hurrah if it has a clue.  Still looking just before or around green beer day. 

[pasnownut]

58 minutes ago, Blizzard of 93 said:

Lol, the 0z Euro supports the folklore!

Hopefully this upcoming window can produce at least one more trackable snow chance.

I want 6.2 more inches of snow at MDT this season in order get the seasonal total to the 30 inch climo average.

The 0z Euro would deliver it. Give me this to verify & then I would be good with moving on to Spring.

Next weekend surely looks to get a trough back in the east.  It's been showing on the LR guidance for a while now, so were getting close enough to think its legit cold.  Just need to see how things line up.  As Mag suggested, GFS/Euro worlds apart in evolution for 3/16 event, so that raises a flag. Looks like you got one more period to track though.  

[Mount Joy Snowman]

Low of 39.  Did much better than I thought here with .77" of rainfall.  Off to have some beers with the fellas and head to The Giant Center this afternoon.  Happy Friday, all.

[Superstorm]

Low of 39.  Did much better than I thought here with .77" of rainfall.  Off to have some beers with the fellas and head to The Giant Center this afternoon.  Happy Friday, all.

Yeah, i was thinking same thing.

I checked my station and it said surprisngly said 0.60”. I was expecting a complete failure.


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[mahantango#1]

1.74 inches of rain so far this week here.

[CarlislePaWx]

Here in Carlisle yesterday...I also heard my first thunder of the year, twice a few minutes apart.  That was followed by heavy rain which put down the (almost) first 1" rain day for this year.  I'll have to go back and find the last occurrence.  I measured 0.96" for the day.  Yesterday was also the third consecutive day with measurable precip; Tuesday: 0.22"; Wednesday: 0.06"; Thursday: 0.96" for a 3-day total of 1.24".  Total for the month is now 1.24" and for the year to date 4.94".

If you check out my snowfall season totals (below) you will see that the winter of 20-21 with 30.5" is the only winter so far this decade with almost normal for the season.  Every other season has been substantially below normal with season totals at or below 20".  And, to add insult to injury, who can forget the winter of '19-'20 with my season total of just 6.5"!?   I only just surpassed last year's 14.9" with season-to-date of 16.1".  Throw a party.

[Itstrainingtime]

45 minutes ago, CarlislePaWx said:

Here in Carlisle yesterday...I also heard my first thunder of the year, twice a few minutes apart.  That was followed by heavy rain which put down the (almost) first 1" rain day for this year.  I'll have to go back and find the last occurrence.  I measured 0.96" for the day.  Yesterday was also the third consecutive day with measurable precip; Tuesday: 0.22"; Wednesday: 0.06"; Thursday: 0.96" for a 3-day total of 1.24".  Total for the month is now 1.24" and for the year to date 4.94".

If you check out my snowfall season totals (below) you will see that the winter of 20-21 with 30.5" is the only winter so far this decade with almost normal for the season.  Every other season has been substantially below normal with season totals at or below 20".  And, to add insult to injury, who can forget the winter of '19-'20 with my season total of just 6.5"!?   I only just surpassed last year's 14.9" with season-to-date of 16.1".  Throw a party.

Thanks for sharing. I'm well below normal as well. I know that many here only care what MDT has recorded as their basis for for determining snowfall, but I'm WELL below what MDT has recorded this winter and quite frankly...to me, that's what matters. 

[Voyager]

2 hours ago, Itstrainingtime said:

.63" of rain fell yesterday, .94" for the week. Air this morning is noticeably (to me) chillier than it was yesterday. I thought it felt humid, this morning it feels raw. Temp is 39 currently. 

 

38 here in Allentown and 62 in Pittsburgh. 

[canderson]

I’m basically alone but I absolutely adore days like today. Mid to upper 40s, drizzly. I really should live in Ireland. 

[MAG5035]

I busted out of the clouds here, was as high as 63ºF earlier. Still around 61ºF

[WmsptWx]

I miss the sun.

[Voyager]

1 hour ago, canderson said:

I’m basically alone but I absolutely adore days like today. Mid to upper 40s, drizzly. I really should live in Ireland. 

Man, you and I are so opposite. It may be above freezing, but this day sucks. Especially when it's near 70 across the state in Pittsburgh.

Now I see tomorrow is only going to be 48 here. So much for the big warm up of 60+. It went from a week plus to barely three days.