Central PA Autumn 2026

[TheDreamTraveler]

Here's a great post from the Atlantic Hurricane Season thread about the current nor'easter. Post is 19 hours old now but still.

 

Oh another thing too the center of the storm had convection firing around the center and some lightning earlier. Very interesting.

 

19 hours ago, vortex95 said:

Concerning the East Coast storm, I wanted to point out something I can not recall seeing in this region in Sep.

This is not your typical "cold" ET storm evolution. The initial surface low development was S of the 576 dm 1000-500 thickness  line and by 25/18z, a small 582 closed thickness pool had formed over the low center (see ECMWF 12z 06 hr and 18z 03 hr forecast attached).  This is a much higher thickness than what you would find in a typical strong ET storm development near 37N in late Se in this region off the U.S. East Coast.  A 582 thickness pool is what you commonly see on the global models over a mature hurricane, so I would be cautious here as this is an outlier case and conventional rules of thumb may not apply.  This is why I mentioned in an earlier post that one needs to think outside the box here.  

Yes, I know that this mid-level warm pool alone does not make it even close  to a ST system currently, but you have to admit this is unusually warm for initial strong baroclinic development and a high launching pad, relativity speaking.  Nothing quite like this (at least in the last 50 yr) has occurred in Sep in this particular region when a strong ET low develops during the  near peak climo of SSTs that are 2-4 C above average and the low meanders for days in the same region close to the coast.

 

I attached the SSTs analysis and the approximate position of the surface low at 25/18z.  It is over SSTs more than enough to support ST transition and is going nowhere fast the next 72 hr off the Mid-Atlantic coast, so I would not let one's guard down here.

The closest analog is the Perfect Storm ET low Oct-Nov 1991 and the hurricane that formed from it eventually, so such a scenario here is not unprecedented.  A recon was flown into that system when the transition had occured and they found a 981 pressure and 88 kt FL winds.