Central PA Spring 2026 Discussion/Obs Thread

[Yardstickgozinya]

Wpc has highlighted a marginal risk for excessive rainfall ,to include all but, South central and South eastern Pennsylvania. 

https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/qpf/ero.php?opt=curr&day=1

[Yardstickgozinya]

I think most of us realize expansion this time of year is many times the likely outcome . I wonder if anybody here could figure out the likelihood of spc expansions versus, reduction versus a consistent forecast in the final 24 and 8 hours before zero hour. 

[mahantango#1]

Dauphin County should be included in this if you look at SPC's map.

Hazardous Weather Outlook
National Weather Service State College PA
422 AM EDT Thu Mar 26 2026

PAZ006-011-012-018-019-025>028-034>037-041-045-046-049>052-056-063-
064-270830-
Potter-Cameron-Northern Clinton-Northern Centre-Southern Centre-
Blair-Huntingdon-Mifflin-Juniata-Bedford-Fulton-Franklin-Tioga-
Northern Lycoming-Southern Clinton-Southern Lycoming-Union-Snyder-
Montour-Northumberland-Perry-Cumberland-Adams-
422 AM EDT Thu Mar 26 2026

This Hazardous Weather Outlook is for central Pennsylvania.

.DAY ONE...Today and tonight.

Strong thunderstorms with heavy rainfall are possible this evening
into early tonight.

[Itstrainingtime]

3 hours ago, Yardstickgozinya said:

I think most of us realize expansion this time of year is many times the likely outcome . I wonder if anybody here could figure out the likelihood of spc expansions versus, reduction versus a consistent forecast in the final 24 and 8 hours before zero hour. 

That's an interesting point and something I was thinking about last week - very rarely does SPC scale back on their outlooks until the event has passed any given area of the country. I honestly can't remember it happening though I'm sure it has. Very high percentage of the time the map gets expanded, though. 

[Mount Joy Snowman]

Low of 45.  Nice day today, followed by another solid rainfall tonight, and then some downright cold days tomorrow and Saturday.  Onward.

[ChescoWx]

To those that celebrate....welcome to Phillies Opening Day!! Go Phillies! It will be a beautiful spring day today with highs reaching the 70's. Shower chances increase tonight into tomorrow morning. Much colder tomorrow with temperatures falling during the day and falling below freezing tomorrow night. Saturday will be the coldest day of the weekend with highs barely escaping the 30's. We moderate back to near normal temperatures by Sunday. Go Phillies!!

[Itstrainingtime]

1 hour ago, Mount Joy Snowman said:

Low of 45.  Nice day today, followed by another solid rainfall tonight, and then some downright cold days tomorrow and Saturday.  Onward.

Something else that hasn't happened much at all recently...the rainfall amounts for tonight have actually trended upwards over the past 24-48 hours. 

[Itstrainingtime]

Happy Opening day to any and all baseball fans. I have tickets for exactly 35 games so far between Baltimore, Philly, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Chicago. Gotta get my fix in now with the lockout looming...

[mahantango#1]

Another stellar day so far, while we wait for potential thunderstorms later.

[Itstrainingtime]

16 minutes ago, mahantango#1 said:

Another stellar day so far, while we wait for potential thunderstorms later.

I looked at my temp about an hour ago and it was 67...and now it's already up to 75! 

[canderson]

Happy Opening Day to all who celebrate. Go Sox! 

[Yardstickgozinya]

6 hours ago, Itstrainingtime said:

That's an interesting point and something I was thinking about last week - very rarely does SPC scale back on their outlooks until the event has passed any given area of the country. I honestly can't remember it happening though I'm sure it has. Very high percentage of the time the map gets expanded, though. 

It's funny, I was actually thinking about including your name in the post because, I realized we've been on the same level atleat in the terms of this topic. But then I figured I better not speak for @Itstrainingtime.  There has been days i've gotten up and to check, and it's been scaled back.But it's very few and far between and it's generally done in the early morning update.  

[canderson]

80 at home today 

[Itstrainingtime]

4 hours ago, canderson said:

Happy Opening Day to all who celebrate. Go Sox! 

1 down, 161 to go for the O's perfect season.

[mahantango#1]

78 was the high here today.

[canderson]

1 hour ago, Itstrainingtime said:

1 down, 161 to go for the O's perfect season.

Same for Boston!

[Blizzard of 93]

Phillies 1-0 !

Current temp is 70 at 10:30 pm

[Blizzard of 93]

Heavy rain in Marysville as I try to get to sleep.

[Yardstickgozinya]

Nice, steady rain here, of varying intensities for the nearly an hour. No thunder so far  or strokes being detected anywhere close to my home . 

[Yardstickgozinya]

Just as I hit enter on my last post,several  rembles of thunder before I could even get this one off. 

[mahantango#1]

Andrea Michaels FOX43 PA’s latest Drought Monitor Update was released earlier this morning, with some notable improvements for portions of the Commonwealth!

Northeast PA saw the most improvement—going from D0 (Abnormally Dry) conditions to nothing! This includes much of the Endless Mountains, the northern Poconos, and part of the Wyoming Valley.

Some of the Middle Susquehanna River area saw improvements from D1 (Moderate Drought) to D0. This includes portions of Centre, Clinton, Snyder, Northumberland, and Union counties.

Not much change unfortunately for South Central PA, but we’ve got some decent rain coming tonight! And there will be more opportunities next week too for needed rain. As long as this keeps up, we’ll get there. Patience is key. Climate conditions like this take time to fix if you’re not getting a single, big rain event.

[mahantango#1]

 

 

0.50 in

Day

 

0.69 in

Event

 

1.55 in

Week

 

6.48 in

Month

 

8.33 in

Year

Well I'm over the 6 inch mark for rainfall for March,.

[pawatch]

Picked up .67” off the storms. 45 degrees this morning and windy.

Not really sure I’m in agreement with the drought map. 
Edit: .73” from the manual gauge.

[mahantango#1]

12 minutes ago, pawatch said:

Picked up .67” off the storms. 45 degrees this morning and windy.

Not really sure I’m in agreement with the drought map. 

It definitely has been wet here this month.

[Mount Joy Snowman]

Current temp of 53 is the low with .49” of rain. Midnight highs have been killing us this month. 

[Itstrainingtime]

Finishing up with .63" of much needed rainfall. Next post will be my 2025-26 winter synopsis/grade.

@Mount Joy Snowman - my high for today will be 72...

[NepaJames8602]

Finally out of the drought here in my part of the Poconos. Received about .50" of rain last night with the front. Hopeful the rest of Pa can continue beating away at the drought conditions in coming weeks. 

[mahantango#1]

The creek by my place is running normal for this time of year.

[Itstrainingtime]

I guess I could have made this post weeks ago, but with respect to @Blizzard of 93I decided to wait despite having strong feelings that winter was essentially over at the beginning of March. 

I guess there are 2 distinct ways in which one could grade this winter:

• "Grading on a curve" - grading the winter based on the pattern heading into it and on a lot of met's projections for the season
• Grading it "straight up" - based solely on what happened regardless of expectations

No one opinion is wrong or right. We're grading on our own observations, perceptions, expectations, etc. While there certainly is objective (data) information available, it's still a subjective call for each poster. That said, here's my thoughts - 

I'm giving winter 2025-26 a final grade of B-. I considered anything from a C+ up to a B and landed in the middle. Main factors that I used to arrive at my final grade:

• Snowfall: snowfall was slightly below normal at 22.4". It's hard for me to grade snowfall higher than a C, which is average, when my total was below normal. Still, we had weeks of deep, solid snow cover and that created a very memorable stretch of true winter weather. Final snowfall grade is a C+
• Temps: temps were below normal, often well below normal during the heart of winter. And those temps helped maintain our snow cover. Unfortunately, the pattern flipped on a dime in late February and March has seen some ridiculously warm weather. Since it's a part of our winter season, I'm grading the temp at a B+. 
• March: March has been awful. And I need to be careful of recency bias, but while it's been a wild month with Tornado Watches, Severe Thunderstorm warnings a plenty, sharp cold fronts that resulted in snow flying just a couple of hours after being in the 60s...there has been very little in terms of snowfall and the month has felt more springlike than anything else. There hasn't really been any legit threat of snowfall now for weeks on end. The dud that this winter has ended on brings down the overall grade somewhat. 
• Personal perception: See above regarding recency bias, I will say that coming back from Florida on January 28th at midday with temps around 10 degrees, deep snow cover, snow blowing all around despite the storm having occurred 3 days prior and then enjoying the snow for the next few weeks...we had an amazing stretch of winter. One that we very seldom have any more. It was a lot of fun in here in December and January and right into early February. 

Factoring all of that, I'm at a B-. Curious what others have to say...

[Mount Joy Snowman]

1 hour ago, Itstrainingtime said:

I guess I could have made this post weeks ago, but with respect to @Blizzard of 93I decided to wait despite having strong feelings that winter was essentially over at the beginning of March. 

I guess there are 2 distinct ways in which one could grade this winter:

• "Grading on a curve" - grading the winter based on the pattern heading into it and on a lot of met's projections for the season
• Grading it "straight up" - based solely on what happened regardless of expectations

No one opinion is wrong or right. We're grading on our own observations, perceptions, expectations, etc. While there certainly is objective (data) information available, it's still a subjective call for each poster. That said, here's my thoughts - 

I'm giving winter 2025-26 a final grade of B-. I considered anything from a C+ up to a B and landed in the middle. Main factors that I used to arrive at my final grade:

• Snowfall: snowfall was slightly below normal at 22.4". It's hard for me to grade snowfall higher than a C, which is average, when my total was below normal. Still, we had weeks of deep, solid snow cover and that created a very memorable stretch of true winter weather. Final snowfall grade is a C+
• Temps: temps were below normal, often well below normal during the heart of winter. And those temps helped maintain our snow cover. Unfortunately, the pattern flipped on a dime in late February and March has seen some ridiculously warm weather. Since it's a part of our winter season, I'm grading the temp at a B+. 
• March: March has been awful. And I need to be careful of recency bias, but while it's been a wild month with Tornado Watches, Severe Thunderstorm warnings a plenty, sharp cold fronts that resulted in snow flying just a couple of hours after being in the 60s...there has been very little in terms of snowfall and the month has felt more springlike than anything else. There hasn't really been any legit threat of snowfall now for weeks on end. The dud that this winter has ended on brings down the overall grade somewhat. 
• Personal perception: See above regarding recency bias, I will say that coming back from Florida on January 28th at midday with temps around 10 degrees, deep snow cover, snow blowing all around despite the storm having occurred 3 days prior and then enjoying the snow for the next few weeks...we had an amazing stretch of winter. One that we very seldom have any more. It was a lot of fun in here in December and January and right into early February. 

Factoring all of that, I'm at a B-. Curious what others have to say...

This is fair, and as you've said, it's all subjective.  I would go a bit higher though.  I believe you've talked before about grading on the "how often does it look and feel like winter" scale, which I completely agree with, and for me this winter just looked and felt a lot like what winter is supposed to be.  Even going back to some of the cold around the Thanksgiving time period and then the relentless cold through the first half of December and again from mid-January through mid-February.  The staying power of the snowpack during that stretch was something to behold, plus a number of days where snow was at least in the air.  While I agree my 22.3" of snow was nothing overly impressive, it just felt like more, and given expectations and some recent winters, I was pleased.  Now, is it fair to grade on that type of curve?  Probably not but everything is relative.  You are right that March has been mostly a dud but there have still been some very potent cold fronts that have brought about some cool events and it hasn't lacked for feeling like March, despite the positive temp anomaly (some of that may have to do with those aforementioned midnight highs distorting our daily summaries ha).  In any case, I thought it was a rock-solid winter pretty much from start to finish -- one I would sign up for again next year if I could right now -- and for that reason I'm going with a B+.  Great discussion.