Central PA Spring 2026 Discussion/Obs Thread

[Mount Joy Snowman]

63 when I left the house. Expected rain totals have dwindled quite a bit in recent days but some people should still do well today. Carry on. 

[pawatch]

Wow radar is full today!
57 degrees…Stay dry! 

[Blizzard of 93]

Good morning, any thoughts on when the rain should move out of the LSV today? 
We are supposed to have a softball game this evening in Perry county, but even if the rain ends this afternoon, field conditions might not be ideal.

 

[ChescoWx]

Cooler today with showers we could see up to 0.25" of needed rain. We are at 73% of normal rainfall for the year to date. We remain cooler than normal through Saturday with a brief warmup on Sunday to above normal before temperatures again fall below normal. Overall, the next couple weeks look to average below normal. Our next shower chances will be Saturday.

[Itstrainingtime]

1 hour ago, Blizzard of 93 said:

Good morning, any thoughts on when the rain should move out of the LSV today? 
We are supposed to have a softball game this evening in Perry county, but even if the rain ends this afternoon, field conditions might not be ideal.

 

What's interesting about the timing is CTP has almost all of under "likely" (60-90% POPs) of rain right through the evening hours. Yet Mount Holly has the Delaware Valley free of rain by 4pm despite being farther east. I don't know if more stuff is going to come through later, but the "main" batch of precip looks to be through here by early afternoon? 

[Itstrainingtime]

This batch of rain is hauling - looks like it will be clear of all of us in the next hour or so. 

[WmsptWx]

Ten day shows a lot of clouds, but no 50s. 

I can live with sixties in May. 

[mahantango#1]

.31 rain today.

[canderson]

The rain broke about 10 mins before I had 600 people in suits walk about a quartwr mile.  
 

Thank you baby Jesus 

[Itstrainingtime]

Exactly a quarter inch of rain here. Several days ago it looked like 1"+.

[Superstorm]

0.46” in Lanco.


.

[mahantango#1]

Steve Knight CBS 21 News



[Blizzard of 93]

.29 of rain yesterday in Marysville.

The rain yesterday ended early enough for the softball field to drain. They got the game in & my daughter’s team played well and got the win.

[Blizzard of 93]

Next rain concern is Saturday. There is a softball tournament scheduled in northern Perry County. 

Anyone have any thoughts on the timing & amount of rain at this time?

[pawatch]

41 degrees this morning.

Picked up .26” of rain yesterday 

Just shut my coal stove down Tuesday morning after a 3 day run.

[Itstrainingtime]

10 hours ago, Itstrainingtime said:

Exactly a quarter inch of rain here. Several days ago it looked like 1"+.

Picked up another quarter inch overnight!

[Mount Joy Snowman]

This probably amuses me more than it should.......low of 46 with .46" of rain.  It's gonna be a good day ha.

[ChescoWx]

Ten of our last fifteen days have featured below normal temperatures. It looks like much of the next 15 days will also average out with cooler than normal temperatures. After some much needed rain last night we have a great day underway today. Below normal temperatures will continue through Saturday. Rain chances increase again toward Saturday morning before we briefly warm to above normal on Sunday for Mom’s day with highs in the middle 70’s. We turn sharply cooler again to start the new work week.

[Ruin]

[Ruin]

still the same bs map they havent updated it tho they claim they have 

[WmsptWx]

33 minutes ago, Ruin said:

still the same bs map they havent updated it tho they claim they have 

It has barely rained in those areas.

[canderson]

Perfect spring day. No notes. 

[Ruin]

7 hours ago, WmsptWx said:

It has barely rained in those areas.

I live in the orange area and we have had rain the last month like 2-3 days a week. while some of it was showers and was only .20 we had other rain events 1.24  1.01 .86 .66.

 

 May 5, 2026, Harrisburg has experienced rainfall total of 11.56 inches, which is a deficit (departure) of -1.39 inches compared to the 13.95 inches average typically seen by this date. we are only down 1.39 This update doesnt even include the thge last round of rain where we picked up about .40 so that means we are about a 1 inch down. no way we should be in the orange color of drought 

[Jns2183]

Imagine you wake up one morning and patent the following revolutionary process: you walk to your mailbox, open it, read the letters inside, and then tell your spouse whether the bills are good or bad. Congratulations, you are now the sole licensed operator of checking mail. Every postal worker, every homeowner, every apartment dweller now owes you a royalty check for the cognitive crime of retrieving and interpreting written correspondence. This is essentially what Athenium LLC ( a troll of all trolls) did with US Patent 11,644,597, except instead of mail they used three freely available government weather databases that your tax dollars already paid for, applied math so simple it would embarrass a middle schooler, and then had the audacity to claim they invented "ice storm risk scoring", a thing meteorologists have been doing since before most of Athenium's employees were born. The United States Patent and Trademark Office, in its infinite wisdom, looked at this and said "yes, this is a novel human achievement worthy of 20 years of legal protection," which says everything you need to know about why your insurance premiums keep going up. Approved in 2023 and I'm at a loss at how exactly a patent inspector can reach heights of such incompetence that I found 7 instances of the exact workflow patented in research papers well before they applied for this and it took me 36 minutes exactly. I wish I could force a conflict with the NWS and them but all they want is to try to sue insurance companies and their entire worth to humanity is less than a mosquito in the Amazon.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US11644597B2/en?q=(G01W1%2f14+-+Rainfall+or+precipitation+gauges)&q=(G01W1%2f10)

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[mahantango#1]

35 with just a touch of frost this morning.

[Jns2183]

I did some stuff outback ground is pretty green and wet dug down a bit to plant a new tree in the back yard and moisture content was very high. the landscaping crew told me only to water it a little after planting since the ground lvl water table is high. So yeah we had a short period in april where we got way hotter then normal. but last 2 weeks aside from this tuesday we have been very cool to cold over night. 3 times last week I had frost on my car at 530-6am getting out of work.

I think a big part of this is where you are located. There is a world of difference between what I'm tracking in Lancaster vs Adams county over the last 90 days soil moisture wise. One is not even -0.5 std dev below normal while the other is flying to -1.5 fast. Here are the precipitation departure from normal over some time periods

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[Jns2183]

I live in the orange area and we have had rain the last month like 2-3 days a week. while some of it was showers and was only .20 we had other rain events 1.24  1.01 .86 .66.
 
 May 5, 2026, Harrisburg has experienced rainfall total of 11.56 inches, which is a deficit (departure) of -1.39 inches compared to the 13.95 inches average typically seen by this date. we are only down 1.39 This update doesnt even include the thge last round of rain where we picked up about .40 so that means we are about a 1 inch down. no way we should be in the orange color of drought 

We also have had 3 straight years below normal rainfall with mean deficit of 10%. Nothing has been able to recharge and the antecedent dry background condition amplifies a single dry month significantly

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[Jns2183]

still the same bs map they havent updated it tho they claim they have 

Haha, also where do you get the idea they just forget to update the maps? You should take 30 mins and read up on the criteria of how the make the map. It isn't voodoo magic whose encantstions are secret knowledge. Ironically the biggest complaint against them the last few years has been their slowness to recognize drought. Not too long ago farmers in West Virginia are sending pictures in of their dead corn and craft fields when they still had supposedly a mild or moderate drought. Also I think if you would look at the areas soil types it would make more sense. Some areas are basically just run off machines because of it and it takes significantly more rain than other areas to recharge the aquifers and Wells and such.

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[mahantango#1]

[ChescoWx]

Minimum temperatures this morning were 8 to 14 degrees below normal for today’s date. The lowest was our typical cold spot in Warwick Twp with a low of 35.5. With the exception of Sunday, where temperatures will be close to normal with highs in the low 70’s we should see well below normal temperatures continue for at least the next week. Rain chances increase tomorrow morning into the afternoon. We should see a mostly sunny Mom’s Day on Sunday before more rain arrives Sunday night into Monday. Some models are hinting at almost an inch of rain between Saturday and Monday night.