Mount Joy Snowman

I've only picked up about a tenth of an inch in the last three hours but some more moderate stuff rolling through now.

Completely agree. I think this thing is moving along quickly enough and will be just spread out enough to avoid major issues for most. Now, there will certainly be some localized spots that are hit hard and some moderate flooding at-large, but I don't see this as a Lee or Agnes situation, too progressive. Also, I expect a relative lull through much of the morning and early afternoon out this way, with the real goods coming this evening. Still optimistic that the highest totals remain just to my north. My 7:30am tally was just under an inch. An exciting day on tap one way or the other. Good luck to all for whatever your desired outcome is!

I was off the grid for a few days -- weddings, fantasy drafts, golf tournaments -- you name it. Busy busy. Actually, we had to travel down to a wedding in Paoli on Friday and some nasty storms had cut through the Downingtown area and did a lot of damage along the Route 30 corridor out there. Lots of trees down on the highway causing quite the back-ups. Welp, looks like we are in the bullseye for Ida's remnants. Everyone ready for some rain? Fire up those sump pumps!

Death Valley, CA -- 116 Peter Sinks, UT -- 27 You're welcome.

Good to have you aboard sir! Always nice to have other western Lancaster County folk.

O’s streak is over!

Wow I only hit 87 today. That’s a huge difference from me to you and it’s not like I had any cloud cover today. Makes me wonder if my thermo is running a little low. I see LNS topped out at 89 hmmmmmmm.

It's not if but when, sadly ha.

Yeah I was surprised to see you hotter than me by a couple degrees but then it hit me that we were in WNW flow for most of the day and I really only see my warm anomalies when we get into southerly flow. I'm the same way, will try and ride it out as long as possible (albeit not down to 54 haha) but once I make the switch to heat or air it stays that way until the seasons change.

.01" going in the books for me for yesterday. Also, I only topped out at 89. A couple of good pool days ahead, ain't.

Update: I did not score, with the storms or in the sack.

Well there might have been a bit of hyperbole with that on Eric's part haha, as he did admit to being his good friend. But the point remains!

Yeah the popcorn is even fluffier than I thought it would be today. I might score a bit here in the near future, on a storm that is, as my wife is currently napping with the baby so no other scoring seems imminent.

Have a couple random thoughts as I was scrolling through all the posts from this past weekend....... First, anyone else get disgusted with all these fights in the stands of sporting events these days? Kirk Herbstreit alluded to this recently, how there just seems to be an epidemic of people wanting to get into trouble in the stands, almost as if they're looking for it or want their 15 minutes of fame. I just find it so trashy and the sign of a trash culture that so many people's first thought nowadays is to pull out their phone and record something rather than to try and help someone or diffuse the situation. Many times they're even cheering it on and can't wait to get it posted to "World Star" or some other garbage site. Also, seeing that woman in the Steelers video smack that guy got me to thinking how there are too many women out there who are far too comfortable hitting a man, for they don't fear any repercussion. The lesson is, don't put your hands on someone unless you are okay with them retaliating. Personally, I don't condone the hitting of a woman even in retaliation, but man everyone has a breaking point and all bets are off when you strike first. I digress. Lastly, I see our good friend 'Ol Joe Bastardi has come up in conversation quite a bit the last couple of weeks haha. I understand Joe can rub some people the wrong way, and is often seen as quirky or goofy, but I also believe him to be one of the best out there at what he does. He's great with large scale patterns and especially historical analogs. Eric Horst even gave him a shoutout a few days ago, calling him one of the best tropical cyclone forecasters in the world. Now, even the most well-versed people in this business will end up with egg on their face from time to time. Heck, sometimes all the predictive variables can be pointing solidly to a particular outcome and Mother Nature will still do something completely different. Such is this goofy game we all enjoy. I was at a work conference one time and was fortunate enough to get to see Joe deliver one of his presentations. The guy has a borderline photographic memory about historical storms and I'm not sure anyone is more passionate about the topic. Again, I understand he can rub some the wrong way with his takes, but all in all I view him as a pretty harmless guy who's good for a laugh now and then but also knows his craft, albeit with a bit of cold bias thrown in at times ha. Also, he seems to be pretty tight with many in the Penn State wrestling community, so that's good enough for me haha. To each their own. Live on Eskimo Joe!

Now that Mt. Holly has updated its PNS, it looks like we have a few totals exceeding 6" in PA, with the big winner being 6.67" near Blakeslee in Carbon County. The highest total I've seen anywhere is a 9.85 from a CWOP near Brooklyn.

Only five away from The Phil's record!

.82" yesterday for me, 1.42" event total. Pleased with that amount, most of which was a nice soaking rain as well. Highest official totals I've seen so far seem to be around 8-9ish inches across central/northern NJ and parts of southern NY. In PA the highest I've seen thus far is from a Jim Thorpe site on Cocorahs reporting 5.91". All in all, a nice little tropical event. The creeks and rivers across NJ are sure showing it...... Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service_ Philadelphia_Mount Holly.html

Yeppers. Wife claims we had a potent T'storm roll through during the early morning hours but I slept right through it. Just had another heavy shower hit us a bit ago.

I was pleasantly surprised to see .6” in the gauge this morning. A nice light soaking rain continuing with no real end in sight. So it looks like no hurricane landfall for New England. Do my eyes deceive me or is Henri about to make landfall soon as a TS near Rhode Island?

I hear ya. If Chickies Creek floods wildly like it did for that event I have no way into Mount Joy. I can't take Route 23 to try and loop around from the west, can't take any backroads from the south, cant take 230 or 772 in from the east......nothing. That happened to us one other time in July of 2018 when we got like 4" one night and the next morning my wife and I were supposed to take the train from Mount Joy to Philly for the Phillies game, had no idea how bad things were and quickly realized we couldn't drive into Mount Joy as it was blocked in all directions from Chickies flooding. We had to panic drive to the Lancaster City station and luckily just barely made it there to catch the train. Good times. Here was my write-up for that period.... Five day period of on and off downpours brought about by a stalled upper level inverted trough that fed deep tropical moisture into the area on strong S to SSE winds and long fetch off the Chesapeake. Event total was 8.3". Nearly 4" fell Tuesday night leading to bad flooding on Chiques that cutoff Mt. Joy in nearly all directions. We had to get to Philles game and rushed to take train from Lancaster. Hardest hit areas were W Schuylkill and N Lebanon/Dauphin Counties with 12-16" widespread. Swatara flooded badly hitting second highest levels ever near Hershey and Middletown. See below.

Ouch, that's a birthday you won't soon forget. So, what did you and your wife end up doing that night? Not to get too graphic ha.

My four-day total from Lee was 13.59", nine of which fell on one day. We really were in the jackpot for that event, not sure we'll see something like it again, at least not for our specific locale. Here is what I had in my notes for that period...... The remnants of Tropical Storm Lee combined with a stalled frontal boundary to make for a historic rainfall event over central PA. Our local area was hit the hardest with 13.59 inches total over a four day span, 9 of which occurred on Wednesday and resulted in epic flash flooding. Creeks like Swatara and Chickies massively overflowed their banks and hit record height levels. Multiple homes along Chickies were flooded and multiple bridges badly damaged, including one covered bridge being washed away entirely. Susquehanna crested at near record levels. The worst flooding I have ever seen in our area, and probably the worst since Hurricane Agnes in 1972. See link below. Also, for those who want to relive it, here is a fantastic summary write-up from NWS........ 4th Anniversary of the Flooding from Tropical Storm Lee (weather.gov)

Haha interesting read. However, be leery of confounding variables with stuff like this. In this case, the confounding variables would be people's proximity to one another , or better yet, total interactions amongst individuals. For instance, it's highly unlikely the people in cold and wet environments are any less angry or prone to conflict than those in hot and dry ones (in fact probably the opposite haha); rather, people in hot and dry climates are able to interact with each other more, whereas the folks in the cold and wet environment spend much more of their time sitting crankily in their homes. Less interactions equals less opportunities for conflict, hence the conclusions reached in the article. Now, in cases where civilizations were quite literally fighting for survival due to cataclysmic drought or something to that effect, then yes conflict would clearly be more likely. Otherwise, I'm not inclined to believe that the people of Buffalo are any less ornery than the people of Arizona or southern California But good stuff nonetheless.

Who doesn't love a good dust devil!? I spotted a potent little couplet on the velocity radar near Mountville the other night and notified some friends in the area but not sure what became of it. Football is in the air!!!

.14" here, looks like some of you folks down near the Mason-Dixon line got a nice little soaking, perhaps one could even call it an over-performer. No let up in the Dews, as they stay tropical for the foreseeable future. The HRRR continues to want to backdoor in some scattered convection from the northeast later this evening. Other than that, we'll have to keep an eye on Henri to see if any of its outer bands can affect the region. Looks like it will make landfall somewhere between eastern Long Island and Cape Cod, could be a close call as to whether it meets hurricane status upon landfall. I think it will but we shall see. Hasn't it been forever since the Boston area has seen a hurricane make landfall?? Some other random tidbits...... CTP confirmed a tornado in Valley View, PA but it may be about the weakest tornado ever to hit the books -- an EF0 with a massive path width of 10 yards, an astonishing path length of 75 yards, and terrifying peak winds of 65mph. Even the EF0 clan is unimpressed, word is they're disputing its inclusion in the club. With that said, NWS is conducting additional surveys today in Snyder, York, and Adams counties from the August 18th activity. In a rare feat, Death Valley was not the hottest place in the Lower 48 yesterday, as that title belongs to Falcon Lake, TX on the Mexico border, checking in at a meager 107. Let's call it a soft daily high for this time of year. National low was 25 at Bridgeport, CA, a high elevation valley that, ironically enough, is less than 200 miles north of Death Valley. I've said too much, carry on......