MAG5035

Got some steady light mood flakes falling.

Fresh coating with the scattered snow showers around. 17°F with a bit of a breeze. Winter is def still alive and well tonight.

As many winter forecasts as I saw this winter that seemed to target the Mid-Atl/NE I-95 corridor for the biggest snows this winter, the setup for disappointment was already there in that regard. I think a lot of people hinged on seeing major North Atlantic blocking for a change, which didn't happen. We don't necessarily need a -NAO to succeed in this region but it becomes a lot more important in that region as a good -NAO pattern (esp coupled with a +PNA) helps to suppress storms and track them in a manner that targets the I-95 corridor, which can often be to the detriment of at least some of us in here of course. The funny part is that you look at big portions of lower VA and NC and they have had an above average winter from the Dec and Jan storms that missed us, which were the two brief times we had a suppressed storm track (esp with that Dec storm). MJO was a big influence this winter, and it ran through the 4-6 phases not once but twice (Dec and Jan). We finally have it running in a more classic fashion through the whole 8-1-2-3 end coupled with the crash in the SOI the last several weeks and we finally got the pattern response despite still not really having a western ridge and North Atlantic blocking. I certainly am not ready to say that we're done yet, although I think when this major cold pattern relents at the end of the week it will go to a more typical March regime being highly unsettled and variable. Given the supportive MJO/SOI run and whatnot, I think there will be plenty of cold running around. The typical transition to spring with warm air fighting back could help promote the more amplified pattern we've been looking for in terms of getting a big storm. We've had big storms in mid-late March the last two Marches in a row, plus this winter's Mid-November storm. We certainly could see that situation again at some point this month.

It wasn't a particularly prolific LES season off of Erie. Remember Erie, PA had it's snowiest winter on record last year. Lake Erie has generally been iced over for the most part since late January and while that might be a little later than usual, the Great Lakes as a whole has quietly had the most ice coverage since frigid 2014-2015. The Lakes as of today have 74.2% ice coverage, which is quite impressive for early March. I mean yea typically you can correlate our cold snowy winters with blockbuster storms to the significant ice coverage in the Lakes but it usually is attributed to a dominant +PNA and/or -NAO regime.. which we had neither of this winter. To go with that, here's an animation of the max ice cover in the Great Lakes per year since 1973. There's been more year to year variability in coverage in the last 20 years. https://www.glerl.noaa.gov/data/ice/historicalAnim/

A fresh 0.3" this morning from the fluffy snow showers that are around brings my season total to 50.9". I consider getting into the 45-50" range as an average winter at this location, so pretty much playing with house money at this point. @Cashtown_Coop came really close to cracking 50" for the season with yesterday so we might end up slugging it out for top seasonal snowfall in the subforum haha.

Was out getting everything cleaned the rest of the way up a little bit ago. I also revisited the half of my deck I haven't bothered with since about Feb 12th and got measurement of the pack (needed a metal flat shovel for both things). Running roughly a 7-10" pack on most of the yard except for near the tree line on my one property edge. First pic is about a 30 pound chunk of frozen sleet/ice dislodged off the deck under the new snow from Fri and yesterday. Second one is the whole snowpack. You can see how solid the bottom half of it is. This stuff is going to take awhile to melt.

They did pretty well overall. The biggest issue with the models in the short range for our region was the more amped NAM and Euro shifting southeast a tad and tightening up the heavy snow axis, which made what was looking like a pretty widespread 6"+ over most of western and central PA in the 48-60hr range to where it ended up being. Track ended up not being an issue, as it was actually a very good track for the precip shield to impact the whole area as was evidenced by the majority of the state seeing at least a couple inches. It just ended up being a tight heavy snow axis, which is a hat tip to the Euro inside 48 hours after it shifted. But we did pretty well for the progressive nature of the system. You need at least two of three things to get the big snowstorm traditionally. A sizable western ridge, downstream blocking/canadian high pressure in place, and phasing of the jet streams. We had none of those things with this event, so the top end was limited. Once the storm was offshore and impacting New England it was able to tap into Atlantic moisture and the gradient between the warm water and a pretty cold airmass and robust 850-700 forcing likely set up that narrow band of excessive snows.

Man there must have been one heck of a meso band overnight as the storm went through SNE. Some 16-17" reports up there.

Lol, what's he measuring... on a windshield?

Yea I thought things came back enough in the near term for widespread 4-5" amounts here and over there in Pit. It's a pretty nice powder snow here and not the really wet snow the southern tier has. Just didn't get enough of the good rates to capitalize. Still not all that bad, it's still + snowfall at least.

Wow I'm not even to 3". My average is 2.7" attm. I did better on Friday morning's system than that. Have to see if this last band to the west makes it and gets us to the 3" mark here. The snow seemed to shut off a couple hours ahead of schedule.

I'm at about 2.3" with some light to moderate snow attm. Some pretty heavy returns building near Pittsburgh that look to be heading this direction.

I'd watch for road conditions to go down hill quick within the next couple hours in the LSV when the heavier stuff arrives over there and we cool surface temps. Down to 30ºF here (28ºF at KAOO)

I got caved roads, and fatties, and sirens haha. We’re rollin now.

Also @Cashtown_Coop, I can't believe your going to make a run at 50" for the season with this storm all the way down there. I'm only about 4" ahead of you.

Yup just starting to move over. Pretty heavy with visibility about 1/4mi. Driveway and back street thinking about caving, haha.

Progress, we're white on non paved surfaces now. Moderate snow.

Ratios probably aren't going to be great in the opening couple hours of this storm but they'll progressively get better as we cool surface temps. Aloft at 850 and 700mb are plenty cold over all of C-PA for good ratios, we just need to get the near surface cooled off and the sun down. Per mesoanalysis everyone in PA is at least -5ºC at 850mb and as low as -10ºC along the NY border. 700mb ranges from -6ºC SE PA to -12ºC in north central. When we start increasing the forcing especially at 700mb we should see pretty good ratios. You and Wmsptwx might make up a lot of the gap in accumulations by having better ratios. Part of CTP's disco:

Settled into a pretty decent light to moderate steady snow in the last hour or so. Nothing to report accumulation wise yet though on the non-snow surfaces.

Light snow has started here.

I put up a post first thing this morning pertaining to my thoughts on the LSV with maybe being a bit warm to start off. I’m not particularly worried. Even if there are issues on the get go, things should quickly turn to all snow and once we get past 3-4pm any surfaces benefitting from the March solar radiation will “cave” when the steadier stuff arrives.

The long 6z HRRR looks pretty good for everyone in terms of precip shield and strength but it's been pretty insistent on a rain p-type to open up the first few hours of the storm in the Sus Valley. Otherwise, accums would be pretty robust across our whole subforum as depicted by that model. Def at least a 4-6" type snowfall for most if the rain conditional wasn't affecting numbers on the front end in the Sus Valley. Would it actually rain at the start? I don't think.. but the reason the model is likely showing such things is because the skin surface temps are above freezing and I'm sure intensity the first few hours isn't high. Timing for the start seems to be the mid afternoon in the Sus Valley (1-2pm) so these above freezing surface temps could materialize at the start. Something to keep an eye on but I think everyone starts as snow (and stays snow the whole storm) and solar insolation would tail off quickly after about 3-4pm if lighter rates weren't doing much on the ground at the start. If this were a late March storm I'd be more concerned about solar issues eating light snowfall but we're at the beginning of the month.

I’m hoping for 6”, that would give me a 6+ in every month except December. Don’t think I’m gonna get it with this one though.

This was the 18z NAM's snowfall using the Cobb method. That one incorporates BUFKIT data into calculating it's snow numbers. I'd be surprised if CTP went to warnings on the section of counties from here to Lewistown to SEG. I'm just not seeing enough support for 6", which is the criteria in these counties. I mean it wouldn't take much, especially if ratios were to play into it.. but this is looking like a 3-5" ordeal for JST-AOO-UNV-SEG. Temps aloft look to be sufficiently cold for good ratios in that region, but need the forcing to capitalize. Again, I think progression is a bigger issue than track. Most modeling including the GFS does get just about the whole state into the snow shield so I don't think anyone in PIT or in here gets shut out or less than 2-3" but we've really narrowed the corridor of 6"+. I rode the hot hand of the Euro/NAM combo in the 48-60hr range and it finally let me down. We may shift back north a tad in the couple runs before game time but I don't think that widens the 6+ corridor. I've already noted previously even with the more amped stuff we saw that I thought this was a 5-10" snowstorm because of the progressive nature of the system. That ceiling might be more like 7 or 8" with the weaker solutions that the more amped models have headed towards in addition to the narrower corridor. CTP's afternoon thoughts:

Yea, the 0z Euro is more progressive and much weaker. The low is SE some but the bigger thing is just how much weaker the system is. It doesn't have the expanse of decent precip to the NW that got our western and northern folks good snows. The result is a narrow area of 6"+ with about an 8" max in PA. 24hr Kuchera