MAG5035

It appears we have a system to watch. The GFS/CMC/Euro paint a pretty good picture of the multiple ways this thing could go. GFS couples a decent high to the north with a low sliding to the south of PA for a change and a good majority of the subforum sees a decent snow event. The CMC has similar timing/track but a stronger surface high and a lighter event for mainly the southern tier while the euro hangs back the high pressure and the storm cuts. Significant difference maker on the Euro appears to be lack of 500mb low east of Hudson Bay. This feature was present on the GFS/Canadian and it provided a confluent flow to the north aiding the storm tracking underneath us. Without that on the Euro the shortwave just boots out NE into the midwest and the developing storm easily cuts.

Nah not even the worst this century, I think MDT finally got it's measurable of the season during this week of February back in 2007.

Oh wow that road would've been a mess. The short range guidance was pretty good at hitting that west central region between Pittsburgh and the eastern Laurel's with near warning or low end warning amounts, so I'm not surprised that it ended up being a pretty decent event up there.. as I mentioned earlier yesterday. CTP went into the overnight last night without even an advisory for Cambria/Somerset before finally having one in the morning. I'd imagine Clearfield did pretty decently too. I'm only up to 1.7" for the day with still some lingering snow showers around. I measured about 4.5" at the top of Wopsy mountain 4 miles away from here earlier this afternoon and there was also freezing rain on the trees too prior to the snowfall up there. Get the sleds out!

I've discovered when putting on photos with my phone it will give you the option of small, medium, large, and actual size... and selecting even medium or large will drastically reduce the filesize of the image. The quality is less if you zoom in on it or something, but I know it's annoying trying to decide which old pictures to clear out of the attachments bc if you delete a past pic it will also take it out of the post you put it in.

Was looking at the GOES imagery.. the College of Dupage site has an overlay for lightning strikes. It looks like it picked up a strike SE of KBGM around 1556z (1056am) along with another one around the same timeframe in NE PA.

I'm glad you guys managed what looks to be a general solid advisory event today over there. I got 1.4" on the day so far over here and might score some additional depending on how much of the backlash snows make it off the Laurels this afternoon.

That low pressure center was traversing southeastern PA just about right over your head this morning and via mesoanalysis is centered roughly northern NJ under 976mb currently. Measured 1.4" of snowfall this morning before the main precip with the deepening low moved away. There's more on this side of town (west side at the foot of the Laurels) than other parts of town. The backlash snows on the WNW flow from western PA are starting to try to move off the Allegheny front now so will see if we can get some additional. My guess is most of that probably doesn't make it east of I-99 this afternoon (downsloping).

I'd say with the snow in western PA and the tornado warnings just next door in northern MD this morning we got our dynamics haha. And this squall line is coming up into York and Lancaster counties with a severe warning.

Dumping snow right now, hope I can hang onto this for awhile. Working on an inch or so, roads caved.

Just woke up not too long ago and we're flipped over to heavy snow. Have a coating and roads are starting to slush.

Me too haha. I hope somebody overachieves... I have a different set of problems to contend with over on this side of the Laurels with this one. Right now I think KPIT at 12.7" is going to keep its lead over the 10.8" I have to date. I only need about 40" more to get to average for the season lol.

The AOO-IPT region is going to come down to how quickly we can get things cold enough to changeover and start accumulating.. as surface temps may be slow to cool to a point that allows more efficient accumulations in the lower elevations. We're also pretty close to the surface low as well. Everyone in this portion of the region should see the changeover but it may be an elevational situation with accumulations.. which seems to be where the hi-res guidance is heading. It probably will be a case of T-2" in the valleys of the ridge and valley region, and potentially some advisory amounts in the higher ridges (especially the western ridges closer to the Laurels/Alleghenies). If that low tracks a tad to the east and/or we get a heavy area of precip that provides a rapid changeover and significant rates, the elevational aspect could be remedied to a degree.

It's not the most ideal scenario by any means, but the inside track this low is supposed to take through eastern PA should be sufficient enough to keep the Pittsburgh area in some decent precip for a bit after the changeover. I think Pittsburgh metro should manage at least a couple inches but I do believe the best snowfall may reside in a line just east running up the Laurels thru Indiana/Punxy on up into Northern PA. Higher areas around the metro probably do a bit better accumulation wise but the cold air coming in with the developing low moving from VA into eastern PA should provide a pretty clean changeover for everyone. That HRDPS can be a bit too wound up with it's precip rates but the dynamics present offer the opportunity for a period of decent snowfall rates. Placement/coverage of the eventual precip area generated from the deepening low and the track of said low will have to be watched closely to see if this under or overachieves. Both options are on the table in western PA.

Looks like NWS Pittsburgh's whole region under an advisory as well as the north central in CTP's. Pretty surprised they don't have the Laurel's counties (Cambria and Somerset) included.

For sure, everything's taking a low-mid 970s low through southeastern PA enroute to heading down into the 960s going through New England. Unfortunately, it still looks like the storm track is too far inside for the Lower Sus Valley to get an appreciable changeover. This could be interesting for west-central PA (Laurel's region) up into northern PA with the Pittsburgh region also perhaps seeing up to a few inches of snow and the AOO-UNV-IPT corridor seeing that potential as well depending on the timing of of the changeover and track of the low. I wouldn't be surprised if a stripe of warning totals ends up running up the Laurel's where elevation (temps) will aid snow ratios some.

Have had some light rain/drizzle this eve with temps hovering around 32-33ºF. Most everything is wet but the car, the steps to the door, and the deck are a solid glaze.

Maybe the 3 counties (Harrisburg area) above the non advised counties in the LSV but I doubt it. Any trace of ice constitutes a winter weather advisory and everyone's dewpoints are still in the 20s. They're probably going to ride on it till after precip arrives and go from there.

I do see what JB is saying wrt to the overall pattern in 93-94 vs this Feb. There was generally a -EPO on that period (much more negative EPO period late Jan of 94) along with a -PNA, which we are running currently and a somewhat +NAO and -AO. The NAO that winter didn't really have any periods of significant + or -. So I can see what he's saying with regards to a gradient type pattern, which we can score something from... but I certainly disagree on the potential to even come close to that winter. The dominant +NAO/AO is really hurting, especially combined with the -PNA in this case. So we get a decent EPO ridge in the progs.. but have a western trough (-PNA). That dumps cold to the west, which would be okay in a more neutral NAO/AO regime that allows the cold to spread east and southeast... but I just feel it is too much in the current predicament. You see this in the model forecasts where yea there has been good runs from time to time with plenty of snow.. but much more often it's runs of storm after storm after storm of p-type issues at best and cutters at worst. If we did get the snow over the weekend, it's likely going to be gone by early next week as heights quickly recover ahead of the next system. This winter has had all the hallmarks of a clunker, and we're getting to the point of the season where we need nothing short of a stunning reversal. I'm not ready for the Panic Room by any means, but I'm not particularly optimistic either right now. If we're playing the compare to legendary winters game, I feel 92-93 is a better fit. Aside from the prolific interior PA snowstorm in Dec '92, winter didn't show up again very much until later in February (very mild January) when we went on a run. But again, that Dec nor'easter and the March '93 superstorm were extreme anomalies within a winter that was generally mild. I just can't compare to 93-94 haha.. that one was wall to wall January into early March. UNV had 30"+ THREE MONTHS in a row (JFM), one of the worst if not the worst cold outbreaks ever in January (-18ºF at PSU with a -36ºF recorded SW of State College one of the mornings) and capped off by a nearly 30" snowstorm in early March. Just an incredible winter, this year we can hardly stay below 32ºF for a high lol.

Surprised no-one brought up the 3k NAM in here, that actually put a stripe of snows through the Sus Valley with the last low on Friday.. which by way is looking like quite a deep low. Could be one of the strongest coastal lows of the season if not the strongest. I don't know if a changeover gets to the Sus Valley in time but the Laurel's and north central are certainly well in play for seeing something and potentially parts of western and central as well as that seems to more of the focus of the Euro/GFS/Canadian (esp western PA). Gonna depend on how rapidly the low deepens and how far inland it tracks. Most guidance seems to have it too far inside for the Sus Valley attm. At any rate, given the disappearance of this weekend wave...this Friday thing might be the best opportunity for snow in the short-medium range.

I saw NWS Pittsburgh post this graphic the other day and couldn't help but share it in here. I can only hope this century's 20's decade does better for Pittsburgh than the original roaring 20s. In fact, that period from 1919-1935 accounted for 1/3 (11 winters) of the 33 winters since 1880 that started at or less than this season's 12.7" to date. There's a few half decent comebacks in there but that's pretty rough.

I've been pretty busy the last couple days, I'll be able to update on things a bit more later on this eve. For the Friday potential there's still some support for a potential changeover in the central counties that still needs resolved. There's a lot of low pressure waves running this boundary and I think the last one Friday can happen if the frontal boundary is able to progress eastward enough. The NAM seems to be the only operational guidance showing much with that (back in the JST-AOO-UNV-IPT corridor), with the 12z GEFS showing a stripe of snowfall over that and more of C-PA into the Sus Valley. GEFS is probably too optimistic on cold pressing in that well, but a NAM type solution can't be discounted. For this wave over the weekend, I'll be interested to see how the thermal boundary recovers behind all the late week storminess. 12z Euro and ensembles have a WV/MD/NOVA/DC focus with this wave today. Still okay for the south central and southern tier of PA. GFS has it more in PA but not as robust. I think this will be a viable threat once we get closer into range but I'd be really surprised if this took a bigger swing south of us than over us. We haven't been able to keep a northern branch low under us all year.

Yea, the only teleconnection going for us right now in the longer range is EPO being progged to flip negative to some degree. That would generally be a good development for the eastern US in terms of winter as the negative phase (ridging into AK) typically will shut off zonal flow directly from the Pac and allow cold air to intrude into the US from western Canada. With a continued -PNA and a hyper positive NAO/AO progged, that would definitely suggest that we're going to continue to deal with limited press south of cold air and issues with storm track being too far north or northwest. The EPO is a significant driver, but I dunno if it's going to overcome such a strong state of the NAO/AO if that came to fruition. The Euro and it's ensembles was the guidance with off the charts + but all other models and ensembles still had a significant positive state progged. Some stuff is starting to take MJO back out into phase 4-5 too as well. We're going to need to see some improvement in these indexes going forward for sure. With that said, one has to realize looking at those teleconnection forecasts that the dominant +NAO/AO sets in mainly AFTER this coming week, where it is looking like we're going to be dealing with P-type issues at various times in some or all of C-PA as well the potential for a lot of precip between these different waves set to run along the boundary.

Lol.. if PETA had their way we could have just plugged animatronic Phil into some teleconnection indices to come to that conclusion, yikes.

WAA band ended up being a 1.0" fluff bomb this morning. That band must have had good lift in the zone snow growth wise, as snow itself appeared to be aggregated dendrites. Already starting to melt as the marginal surface temps are making this look like something you'd see on April 2 vs Feb 2. 1.2" total on the day, which finally gets me over the 10" mark on the season. 40" to go to get to average lol.

That heavy band of WAA snow is definitely a crush job albeit a brief one. A bit over a half inch of large aggregates and some caved roads.