Itstrainingtime

GFS brings precip in a little too late tomorrow AM for areas east of the river to see any white...though it's still showing a decent burst of snow on Friday.

Not that I know of. I do know that he was giving public tours of the Steelers Hall of Fame yesterday afternoon. Correction - there's a picture online of him giving a family a tour yesterday afternoon at the Heinz History Center.

Allow me to digress for a moment - really having a mixed emotions kind of day. Today my work team is celebrating the holidays with a catered luncheon, a day that in the past I've always looked forward to with excitement. Unfortunately, the day began with some terribly sad news. I "met" #32 back in the early 90s at Beaver Stadium. I was at the USC-PSU game with a friend of a friend kind of thing, and he was telling me about these very special seats that he had. (season ticket holder) At any rate, a few minutes prior to kickoff, here come Franco into the row directly in front of us. In fact, Franco's seat was directly in front of me. When PSU scored, Franco stood, turned, and gave me a high five. I thought that was kinda cool. A moment I'll never forget. A really, really good person whose time came far too soon. RIP #32. You will be missed.

It does seem like over the past several years we've had some January duds - doesn't mean that this year will offer the same. It only takes one well timed system that can change our perspective very quickly.

Punt could always get shanked - hey, sometimes we lose in great patterns and sometimes we win when the pattern might suggest we shouldn't. I'm certainly not closing the door for that amount of time.

We MIGHT get snow on the back end. I would certainly not say it's a done deal.

Unfortunately, virtually no love on the back end though.

NWS Buffalo talking about "paralyzing blizzard" in their area later this week - this area is already over 100" for the season. They're in line for multiple feet of snow along with winds up to 70mph.

I'm not sure - I sort of adapted that from the New England forum - they have an obsession with talking about their fannies. LOL

#facts

I wanted to give @Festusan actual number, but couldn't. Thank you very much for this! (I would have guessed "7" since 1965)

Sort of on the subject of memory, I have some time this morning so I'd like to share some insight and actual data on snow maps. At the end of the day, let me just say now that: I know that almost the entire populous in this thread loves to see snow maps. I respect each one of you, and I also respect your wish to view them Related to the above, I have relented on my own petty complaining when these maps are posted. If they bother me, it's my choice to simply move on, which I have done A couple of things I'll share as to why and how I got to where I'm at today with snow maps: If I take any one of the bigger weather models - I'll start with the European model. So far this season, if you take that model's highest snow output per any event for my location and add them up, I should have already received 47" of snow. In fact, one run on the Euro this season has already shown 27" for one event here using a 10:1 ratio. That 47" of Euro snow goodness has translated to a whopping 0" here, including not even a flake. Other computer models have spit out similar totals. But let's not stop there - I actually went back and gathered data for the entire 2021-22 winter season. Taking the Euro run that generated the highest snowfall for my location at a 10:1 ratio, I should have received 202" of snow last winter. My final tally for the season was a wee bit less, checking in at 16.6". That's about 7% of what the Euro suggested that I would receive at some point during each event's model cycle. That's a whole lot of digital snowfall that never became reality. I knew there was obviously a large discrepancy...even I didn't know that it was THAT great. And that leads to my second point... I'm part of a team at work that has to make decisions to either postpone work or carry on as scheduled when winter weather is looming. Keep in mind, those same maps that we all love to look at in here (except me) are also widely available to Fanny Sue and Billy Bob, who know absolutely nothing about the weather. But yet, when they get their hands and eyes on those pretty maps, they start coming to me with questions, demands, etc. about why I'm not panicking and preparing to shut down operations. Mind you, some of these questions/requests come at 11pm, 2am, etc. And each winter, far too many times to count each winter, I have to explain why what they're looking at won't happen. And after it doesn't happen, I get to do it all over again during the next threat. I don't mind, in fact I love having to make decisions for events that will actually happen, but it gets really tiresome to do so 15 times each winter because the best computer model in the world starts spitting out 27" for Lanco 7 days out and the reality is...55 and rain, which is going to happen Thursday night/Friday. Further, because the public doesn't understand the weather nor do they even care about the weather until they see a map with purples and greys and pinks splattered all over Lancaster county, trying to explain that each year we only see a total of about 7% of a model's output is totally lost on them. @Blizzard of 93- you...post a LOT of great info in here! Pattern changes, changes in the NAO, PNA, etc. - that is all very useful, even if not always accurate, to share with us. That info can help us understand potential pattern changes that might offer hope (or further despair) for the weather that we all really want. I value all of that stuff. Please here/understand this in the midst of my snow map rant. You do add a lot to this thread. Thank you. Having said that, I'll continue to despise snow maps with every fabric inside of me - and at the very least, I hope most of you will now understand the why behind the way that I feel.

We've actually had several winters since 1965 where we've made it to January before I received my first measurable snowfall - having said that, I don't have records for this, but I cannot remember not seeing so much as a flurry prior to the New Year. At this point we have a puncher's chance of that happening. Also, my definition of measurable is not the same as "official" records...to me, that has meant at least .1" of snow on the ground.

I remember weather events from the 1970s and 80s much more vividly than I do from last year. Don't know why, but it's true. I remember the sound of the rain on our roof from Agnes in 1972...it's a sound that it etched in my memory forever. I can still here it...

Yesterday I mentioned arctic fronts in the 1970s and 1980s that featured dramatic temp drops - below is a chart I got out of the MA thread this morning...this is for DCA, obviously the same front came through our area as well. Note that out of the top 10 temp drops of all time, 3 of the 10 were in a 4 year period from 1978-1981. Take a looksie at how far the temp plummeted. This old man's memory is still pretty good:

FWIW, CTP does not mention snow in my forecast at all. Rain ending by 1pm Friday, then windy and cold.

100% agree - snow that will be washed away in minutes? Well okay, given that I haven't seen so much as a flake, for that reason only, I'd take it. Otherwise, fully onboard with snow/wind/cold = staying power. Skies were partly to mostly cloudy here the entire night I guess. (It was cloudy at 11 when I went to bed and cloudy at 5am when I woke up)

Low of 30 this morning in Maytown.

I said something to my wife about the front or back end scenario and she said right now...neither.

I remember your request, and I am only posting about weather now. As I said last week, I was largely responsible and apologize again for that.

I didn't see anything really out of line. I might have missed something though.

I was telling a few people this over the weekend. There were several winters that decade that produced so few chances...it was a lean period save for a few bigger events. On top of that, our knowledge was limited back then to TV 7 day forecasts...without being able to parse models and such, we couldn't even get a glimpse into all of our impending failures like we can today.

I could not possibly agree more with you on every point and at every level of your post. It's way bigger and way deeper than jaded weenies on a weather board.

25 and frosty this morning. It's been years since we've had a frontal passage accompanied by a sharp temp drop - much more common back in the 70 and 80s. I'm not talking about going from 65 to 44, I'm referring to 40 degree drops like what we might see this week. At least it's something interesting to watch for.