Central PA Spring 2026 Discussion/Obs Thread

[mahantango#1]

US National Weather Service State College PA 

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Wednesday - April 29, 2026 @ 515 AM EDT: An area of low pressure will move northeast from the Ohio River Valley and cross Pennsylvania later this afternoon and evening, bringing a soaking, beneficial rainfall. The brunt of the rain associated with this low will last for 6 to 8 hours in most places. The rain will move out of the state late tonight.

[pawatch]

56 minutes ago, Mount Joy Snowman said:

52 when I left the house. Looks like rain totals have been cut back a bit but should still be a nice soaking this evening. 

52 degrees here also.

Seems like rain totals get cut back most of the time.

[Mount Joy Snowman]

1 hour ago, Mount Joy Snowman said:

52 when I left the house. Looks like rain totals have been cut back a bit but should still be a nice soaking this evening. 

Almost forgot, also received .01" of rain yesterday.  Very important ha.

[pawatch]

Looking at the rain map, Sellinsgrove is getting screwed  

[WmsptWx]

Interesting development: Thunder 

[mahantango#1]

Thunder and a little shower here now.

[Voyager]

52 degrees...ugh. Too damn cold.

[mahantango#1]

37 minutes ago, Voyager said:

52 degrees...ugh. Too damn cold.

You got that right!

[Blizzard of 93]

.23 of rain so far in Marysville as of 7:30.

Steady rain continues.

Heavy band looks to be developing out near Huntington & Franklin county.

[Itstrainingtime]

YES!!!

[canderson]

.54” rain today 

[Blizzard of 93]

1 hour ago, Itstrainingtime said:

YES!!!

Flyers advance!

[Blizzard of 93]

4 hours ago, Blizzard of 93 said:

.23 of rain so far in Marysville as of 7:30.

Steady rain continues.

Heavy band looks to be developing out near Huntington & Franklin county.

That heavy band delivered.

.60 of rain total today in Marysville.

[Jns2183]

A little thought experiment. What do you feel is the worst case meterological scenario rack the lower Susquehanna valley has a realistic chance of facing the rest of this century.

Something that doesn't get talked about enough for this area is the setup that truly keeps me up at night. It's a deep Greenland block anchoring a stationary front right along the spine of the mountains to our west, timed perfectly with a tropical system on approach.

The PRE (the days before lee featured a pre, and it wouldn't have taken that much different timing for hurricane Katia which fed the pre, to be this storm) Days two and three before landfall, small shortwaves combined with a tropical depression remnant riding up over a stalled front to our West in the mountains due to a strong, south based, slowly retreating rex block, low level moisture from our hurricane start training over the same geography repeatedly. Due to the angle of approach the moisture tap is already running full blast hundreds of miles ahead of the center. We're talking three to eight inches of rain before the storm even gets close. Ground is done. Fully saturated. Soil is weakened around every root plate in the metro.

Then the approach angle shifts. Forward speed jumps from maybe ten to thirty mph as the block partially erodes and the storm finds its exit. The damage from that sequence is already locked in before a single tropical wind gust arrives.

Now put the track just west of the valley so we're sitting in the right front quadrant, winds from the southeast, additive component of forward motion stacked on top of rotation. Even if the winds only land somewhere between Hazel and Sandy that's a catastrophic tree loss event on a seventy year old suburban canopy that has never been tested.

The part nobody plans for is the utilities. Crews are staged south for whatever hit the coast first. Forecast uncertainty from the block interaction blew the seventy two hour window you need to pre-position resources here. The SSE wind vector exposes trees weakest side to worst winds. Many of the roads 5-10 minutes from camp hill basically have a tree canopy for miles due to how thick and close the trees grow. Those roads become impassable with 20+ trees blocking it per mile in heavy forest. All those railroads like that taking away from two to four weeks actually become open We get weeks without power in a lot of places, not days. The situation in rural areas is more similar to Helene and Katrina with being cut off. This is one where overall emergency managers can make the correct statistical rational choice and because of timing and non linearity it still becomes a disaster like none other. The same setup that sends the the cat 4 at landfall hurricane rocketing up here at 30-50 mph (hazel which saw 98mph at DC and close to it in York was only going 30mph while the 38' hurricane through Long Island was at 55mph and that Forwardvmotion gets added to the winds on the east side) is the one that stalls the front, pierce the low-level tropical moisture into it causing the pre. So that is it.

My crazier 1 in 10,000 year scenario for it even happening on the east coast period involves an upper Midwest drought not unlike the one preceding the 1871 Pestigo firestorm, a potent shortwave from that direction that perfectly hits a window of just an hour or two to cause the rapidly coming storm to occlude in a manner that produces a stinger jet like the 1987 storm that hit the Uk. A small area the size of the lsv on the south to ssw flank would be in overlap area due to shape of Appalachian mountains and track. The stinger jet would produce gusts over 125+ with sustained over 85. That area would of overlap with insane tornado parameters that in the perfect situation would give us (early October) cape above 2200, SRH 450+ with 135 degree turning between 850 and 500mb. STP estimated at 8+ easy, LCL 250-500 meters. The model producing these values went ape shit especially due to dry air from upper Midwest. It's one of those things that's possible but so far unlikely that planning is fruitless. That 1 in 10,000 year event was just the pieces coming together like this. You can't even. Calculate a return period for alot if areas due to Continental drift and long term climate. But hey, if your area manages to get a stinger jet and ef4 tornados from the same system I'd bet the on the Apocalypse happening before I would bet on being random weather.

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[Blizzard of 93]

6 hours ago, Blizzard of 93 said:

That heavy band delivered.

.60 of rain total today in Marysville.

I tacked on .08 overnight.

Event total .68

[mahantango#1]

.53 rain for the event. 

[Jns2183]

I apologize if it's already been talked about. I'm haven't been stopping around the forum too much lately. Many fruit farms are reporting 100% loss of fruit as of today from the last freeze. I myself also lost everything.  The last freeze did turn out to be locally, one of the most agricultural devastating freezes since i've been a member here.  

I'm really sorry to hear this. That cold February followed by March warmth followed by April 8th freeze then hyper Summer before the 2.6-3std deviation freeze on 21st was the perfect trap.

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[Mount Joy Snowman]

Low of 48 with .37” of rain. 

[Jns2183]

.82" which puts me at 2.42' for month. Just over 50% of normal. We are not in good shape if we don't get a top 20 wet May.

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[Itstrainingtime]

Finished with .61" of rain in Maytown.