Itstrainingtime

Ah hah! That is what i remember...sort of lol (I didn't remember the snow/sleet on the 24th, but I do remember the rain to snow deal)

I'm in that sub more than I am here, mostly due to activity and the fact that they have some absolutely dynamite posters. (Hoffman, Chill, plus several red taggers are super informative. Plus, our weather often starts down there, so there's that. For whatever reason they are very protective of "their house" and don't welcome outsiders well. Ask @pasnownut about that.

This is why I so wish I didn't stop with my meticulous record keeping in 1997. My memory is not what it once was - when I think back on this event I thought it was a rain to snow scenario...I thought the night before I went to a Christmas eve service in rain, and early the next morning it changed to snow. I honestly didn't remember that it was supposed to be a snow to rain deal. So glad the rain part never came. The other thing I remember is getting up at an obscene time on Christmas morning. My kids were very young and woke up my wife and I sometime around 4am. That probably more than anything else has my memory of all of this messed up.

10" of wet paste...I lost power that day for hours. Can't believe I forgot, thanks...

Terrific post. All true words. Other than 1/6/1996 and 12/18/2009, the cupboard is pretty bare on significant snows before the middle of January. Those are our facts... Now, as the COPP of this bunch, that doesn't mean I don't want it sooner during our peak low sun angle season. (COPP - Chief Of Pack Preservation)

There seems to be unanimous agreement we are shutout for the next 10+ days...there are differing opinions on the timing of the pattern flip, but to your point there were quite a few solid posters/mets who seemed concerned it would take well into January before we see signs of improvement here. One thing we know - things can change quickly. What looks like a good pattern can go to crap and vice versa almost overnight. We wait...

17 here. It woke me heading out for work this morning for sure.

Dude...it was cold. I love cold. But after about 2.5 hours I cried uncle and quickly moved the fam towards the parking lot.

It was a cold night in Hershey. Had a dusting of snow upon our arrival, after that just biting wind and cold.

Agreed. It'd be nice to have a chilly Christmas during an overall hostile period of weather.

There it is! I've been patiently waiting for that picture for a while now. That must have been one heck of a squall...enjoy your snow!

Looks like we might get a backdoor front sometime on Christmas eve?

Dusting here at work. Had near zero vis for about 3-5 minutes. Sorry Brian! I was watching it and wondered if you were in on it. Missed your post above.

There are yellows showing up on CTP's radar. Extremely rare from recollection. I'd hate to be driving in that but I'd love to be sitting by MY window staring at it.

Very dark here across the river from you. Wife reports a squall at home.

Amen. Let's get some snow with low sun angle and keep it around for a while.

Wife and daughter insist that we're going to Christmas Candylane tonight. Why did they have to pick tonight of all nights?....

It's always snowing in Tamaqua!

? That seems more like an observation than banter...

I agree. This group is special and to Bubbler's point we've always sort of managed model discussion and banter all in one thread. (though we do/did have a complaint thread in the past) Because of our numbers it's easy to get to know a little bit more about people which helps make it more personal. I really do enjoy being here.

I remember it well. First big one to hit after I bought my house in Maytown. I had less sleet than Lancaster city did, but it was enough to shave a few inches off the board.

Yes! Although I'd argue that we flip quicker more like 9 out of 10 times, but your point is spot on. With that...ANY time we get a SE component to the wind direction, we're toast. There is nothing between us and the big pond to our east to impede warm air aloft from flipping us over. A lot of times NO models pick up on that. Doesn't matter. We're going to flip.

I appreciate your encouragement and your own personal anecdotes. I am a firm believer in microclimates and totally believe and understand what you're describing for your area. And...this is a discussion board, so there's that as well. Still, I need to be careful to balance things so that our thread doesn't disintegrate into a whine fest. Speaking of which - there are people who complain that rub me the wrong way. I'm sure I rub a lot of people wrong and that bothers me enough to want to post better. One poster who doesn't bother me is Ji. Personally, I love the dude. He has an incredible knack for whining in a way that find hilarious instead of grating. I know he PO's a lot of people but I can't tell you how many times I will literally laugh out loud at my computer reading his comments. I would miss the heck out of him if he ever stopped posting. He knows his stuff, too. Continue...

This really is a great post. I say that with some conviction because I've been guilty of some of the things you're talking about. I sincerely hope that I've improved since last January, I came to understand how I was affecting others with some of my rants and I made a commitment to myself and to each of you to never go there again. I marked a few of your words in bold. This is where I struggle as what I would describe myself as an extreme weather "nut." My fascination with weather began in June 1972. Tropical storm Agnes was what started the journey. I was still 6 years old at the time. That year for Christmas as a 7 year old kid, my parents fostered my passion by getting me a Meteorology textbook as a gift. I still remember pushing my toys aside and sitting on our sofa and reading about all things weather for hours. By the time I was 12 I was keeping full, 365 days worth of weather notes in yearly journals. Full weather notes...daily high, low, humidity, wind direction, speed, pressure, cloud cover by percentage, and cloud types. Included with all of that was personal observations...in winter, where did the center of low pressure exit the Atlantic coast? How far offshore was it when it passed our latitude? Was it inside, over, or outside the benchmark? What was the pressure at various points? What direction was the wind? I made notes on all of that. I continued doing that until the mid to late 1990s when career/marriage/kids became a bigger priority and most of the weather data collection stopped. I studied meteo in school and did exceptionally well. I did not stay and get a degree. I have regrets to this day, that's another story for another time. Having said that, I've been an avid weather follower/observer for 48 years, all of which in Lancaster county. I've watched and observed too many times to count when virtually every model that I saw was wrong. Wrong when they said it was going to snow and it didn't, wrong when they said it would miss and it didn't. I will argue until I'm blue in the face that there are times when...okay, maybe a better word than feel is... past experience? Understanding of local climate? Call it what you want, but what I saw coming for my area this past Monday was little to no snow. And I felt that way even when most if not all models supported accumulating snow in our area. To me, the trajectory of the low (I mentioned this before the storm) was off for us to be under the best rates (lift, forcing) and my sense was given that, what was heading our way was going to dry out. I need to do a better job going forward at vetting that out so it doesn't come across as nothing more than being a deb or making wild guesses with absolutely nothing behind it. There is so much, so much that I don't know and don't understand. Obviously, there are times when things are obvious...and many times they aren't. My "feel" or experience, or local knowledge has served me well for a very long time. Our organization has a snow "cancellation" process and the executive team taps me (they really should tap Brian @daxx but I regress) to get my thoughts and opinion on what is going to happen. And sometimes conversations get awkward in the office because they're seeing snow maps on Facebook and other social media and then I have to explain to them why I think they're all wrong. So, @pasnownut I agree with you and I take to heart what you post. You have my respect and admiration to be perfectly clear. I'm just saying that for me..."feel" matters a whole lot. I guess it's how I get to the point of why I feel the way I do that I need to share better.

Exactly. It's not a sprint, it's a marathon...