Mount Joy Snowman

Yeah, I mean I know this isn't exactly a scientific explanation, but how many times have we seen these things happen in waves where the same areas got concentrated on during a multiple storm pattern? Some bonus material for ya......one of my uncles favorite quotes: "Sometimes me sits and thinks, and sometimes me just sits." Always loved that one haha.

RGEM wants to focus on the same areas that just got walloped with yesterday's storm, could certainly see that being the case.

Haha I mean it's not ideal but not bad either, plenty of time for shifting. I think the NAM is still struggling with the overall evolution and is a bit out of its range.

Not a bad look.....

Low of 18 here. I will be extra tuned into the 12z guidance today, as models should really be in their wheelhouse. I watched Ben last night as well, and like others, this Packers fan got a little misty eyed. This batch of QBs retiring hits me different because it feels like the last group that is even semi linked to my childhood, even though I had been years out of high school when someone like Ben was drafted ha. It still has the 'ol timer feel to it a bit, know what I mean? Anyway, people can discuss his legacy as they see fit but Pittsburgh having 18 straight years without a losing season, while no other team is even remotely close to that, is extraordinary and just a model of consistency. There's something to be said for that it today's world. Respect.

I stand corrected! 12 is indeed the number. I will now humbly eat my plate of crow.

So, just to elaborate on all of the above, as my numbers brain is off on a tangent today. Not to call @Bubbler86 out or anything but it was "only" 11 days last year that set a record for highest minimum temp, as the 12th was actually January 1, 2022. We'll give Bubbs a pass for his egregious error on this one Side note, there were four such records set in 2020. All this got me thinking ( a dangerous thing) and I decided to look at the total number of days this Millennium that we have broken records for traditional highs and lows. Forget all the min max and max min stuff for now ha. As it turns out, and to the surprise of no one, we have had more than twice as many daily high records set as we have daily lows since 2000, 78 to 34. Given our 22 year observation period and a 134 year POR, we would expect roughly 60 days of broken records a piece for each of highs and lows (120 total). So, we are actually underperforming more on the cold side than we are overperforming on the warm side. One final note, we are having a much harder time breaking daily records in the summer than in the winter, on both the high and low fronts. When it comes to lows, we have set 18 in the months of Nov thru Feb, just about what we'd expect to see. But in the months of June thru Sep we have set only 2 total! On the high side things aren't quite as disparate but still a significant difference, with 36 records set in the months of Nov thru Feb and only 18 in the months of June thru Sep. Perhaps that extra water vapor and higher dewpoints are increasing cloud cover in the summer, thereby preventing more cold nights and hotter days -- a belief I believe has been discussed here before. Food for thought.

Wow. Nice digging there. Doing some rough math here and considering a period of record ranging 134 years, if things were perfectly random, we would expect about 2.7 such records of each type (i.e. high, low, low high, and high low) to be broken per year. So yeah, 12 seems anomalously high.

I feel like the modeling was pretty good overall with this system. Side note, and I believe this was touched on previously, perhaps by @Bubbler86, but just a reminder that MDT set records for highest minimum temp on three consecutive days -- 43 on 12/30, 46 on 12/31, and 47 on 1/1. Finally, we seem to be getting into some more seasonably sustained weather.

A temp of 29 with a DP of 16 tells the story here. Atmosphere just never moistened up enough to allow flakes to reach the ground. #virga

Nary a flake here and a touch of pink sky to the north. Sneaky dry layers and dewpoint depressions were the name of the game with this one. On to late week.

Me thinks a lot of people in our neck of the woods are in for quite the virga storm.

I actually don’t use a digital weather station for tracking precip. My preferred method is the tried and true cylinder gauge, which I manually check every morning. I use the “official” cylinder gauge with the inner gauge that measures up to one inch before overflowing into the larger outer cylinder. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong but I believe this is the gauge that is required to be used for all Cocorahs members and perhaps even NWS observers? Automated gauges can be very handy and accurate but I still don’t trust them in certain instances. What can I say, I’m just old-school in a lot of ways ha.

.71” of rain here. Looking forward to a more wintry pattern developing in the near to medium term.

That’s an astounding record. Amazing, really.

This is where I would like to remind everyone that 6 of our last 8 winters have been above average seasonal snowfall. Speaking for Harrisburg of course. In any case, let's keep a little perspective. Our snow will come, it almost always does!

Not only is it top ten of all time but from what I can tell it's number two behind only the 81.2" during the winter of 1960-61.

No doubt. I believe the Keweenaw is considered the snowiest non-mountainous place in the world, but could be wrong about that. They can get lake-effect from damn near any direction. Any of you know of John Dee? Weather guy who lives up there and tracks everything, has cams, writes blogs, etc. It's just an incredible environment up there. Here is his site: https://johndee.com/

I think we may have been discussing the Pine Creek Inn?? I have to get there some time. It's just that we never travel west of Galeton on Route 6. Damn I miss the Galeton 4th of July fireworks too, best I've ever seen. We used to go up every summer for those (hang at the Wonder Bar afterwards ha) but it's been a minute ugh. As for doing anything like that soon, unlikely, as I have a 20-month old with another on the way in April. I'll be sitting on the sidelines for a bit when it comes to most of that stuff but I'll be back in the saddle one day and when I am, look out!

Good stuff Nut. I believe I've mentioned this to you before but I have a buddy with a cabin up that way that must be close to you, also in Gaines. He's a few miles south of Route 6 and doesn't sit quite as high as you (~1,900') but he is on the north side of the mountain and boy oh boy you ain't kidding about it being a different world up there. I specifically remember a time we went up for a late March bachelor party and there was nary a hint of snow on the entire drive but as soon as we rounded the bend on the top of the mountain the north face was completely covered. His yard still had damn near a foot in it. Then it proceeded to snow almost non-stop for three days, just glorious. We had a keg plopped in the snow. What a weekend and what a place ha.

It's funny, I have buddy moving up to Bethel, AK so I've been keeping tabs on things up that way and they actually had a brutally cold November. Anchorage was like 8 degrees below normal and Bethel was a whopping 18 below average! December has been more of a mixed bag with Anchorage running a few degrees below and Bethel like 8 degrees above, and other locations are all over the place. But November was something else up there, just locked in extreme deep cold. Bethel's average temp for the month of November was .7! Think about that, .7 as an avg., in November no less haha! I believe it was their second coldest of all time. Changing topics but thought some might find this interesting in regards to Sierra snowfall: With four days left to go in the month, Tahoe has already broken the record for December snowfall set 50 years ago. On Monday, December snow totals at the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab reached 193.7 inches, blowing a 1970 record of 179 inches out of the water. The lab, located at Donner Pass, has received roughly 39 inches of snow in the past 24 hours and could break the 200-inch mark today.

I actually got 8.2" that year but yeah, putrid. Interestingly enough, Harrisburg's first year of record keeping in 1888-1889 may have had a shot at being under 10" as well, but they didn't start tracking until January of 1889 so we don't know what fell in Nov or Dec of 1888. However, only 8.0" was recorded in Jan thru March of 1889, so if Nov/Dec would have come in at under 2" we'd be in business. Doubtful but who knows. The following season of 1889-1890 was also lackluster, with only 10.3". I'll leave it up to you to decide if the snow measurement techniques were up to snuff back then ha.

I count four occasions where Harrisburg received a total seasonal snowfall of under 10 inches -- 1937-38, 1949-50, 1994-95, and 2019-20. The one two years ago was the worst in history, as we all know too well, with just 5.1".

You really can't ha.

A low of 39 last night with .02" of liquid H2O for me. Looks like parts of the Route 6 corridor got 2-3" of snow. Forecast for the foreseeable future: Clouds.