Mount Joy Snowman

Well it's a nice dreary soggy day to nurse a hangover. The wife and I ended up getting after it a little harder than planned yesterday, funny how that works ha. We were popping all around downtown Lancaster with some friends. Speaking of friends, where is my water mug.....

Well, I recorded my first precip yesterday, in the form of light sleet/rain, since March 1st. Looks like we'll make up for that lack of precip with a serious rain-maker on the way for Thursday. I'll be thrilled if I can measure a couple tenths of an inch of snow late Thursday night or early Friday morning. Happy St. Patty's day to all! The wife and I are heading out for some beers this afternoon. Cheers!

haha touche, I'm still worked up about that whole "hail being counted as snowfall" conundrum I unearthed last week.

A mix a light sleet and rain just came through here, enthralling stuff I know.

Yeah you love the low temps that result from the potent wet bulbing but hate the virga fest you have to endure while waiting for the atmosphere to moisten. Always something with this weather game I tell ya.

Man, what a dry airmass for this time of year, talking 10th percentile or lower with Dews below zero and RH values in the 15-20% range.

preach brotha

Oh man some real clowns down in that MA forum. Anyway, my take on the upcoming pattern is that significant snowfall is very likely in the coming weeks but will probably be confined to the more typical regions for this time of year (i.e. upstate NY and perhaps extreme northern tier of PA). I would never rule out a coastal popping at just the right spot along a boundary to bring us some action into lower PA but wouldn't place my chips on it either. Regardless, winter is not over and will make itself known a couple more times before the month is out. Now, what's going down in eastern Wyoming/Colorado this weekend, THAT is worthy of some attention. Likely gonna be a season's worth of snowfall for some folks out there. Gotta love the high plains and front range weather!

Sorry for the blank posts. I have no idea why that's happening. All I did was copy and paste the text from the Record Event Report from CTP for Harrisburg and it doesn't seem to like that. Anyway, the record was officially set at 76. Carry on.....

Mid to upper 70s abound. You can see where the rain is.....

Yes, yes it did ugh. A Badger fan I reckon?

First time in 45 years no Duke or Kentucky in the tourney. I'm holding out hope for a miracle Penn State run in the B10 tourney but we all know where this leads haha.

74 here, looks like MDT also hit 74 already so that daily high record is long gone, as we figured.

Wow, you shoot up a lot faster than I do down here in the hollow. I'm sitting at 53 but expect that to skyrocket within the next 1-2 hours.

The daily max temp record for Harrisburg for March 11 is the "softest" of the entire month, at only 69 set in 1977. Almost all the surrounding day records are upper 70s to low 80s. That puppy is due to be broken and I don't think there's much doubt we take it down today, probably by a substantial margin.

64 here, still taking those static shocks when I get out of the car with a RH of only 36%

Gentlemen, I hate to disrupt the excitement over the never ending train of massive snowstorms that are sure to pummel our area in the ensuing weeks, but let us take a moment to mourn what is one of the saddest days of the year for weather weenies everywhere, that being the day that marks us having to wait an extra hour for the weather models to come through. Yes, Sunday will be a day of tears as we all come to grips with the fact that 12z is no loner 7am but rather the dreaded 8am. However, let us find comfort in the extra hour of evening daylight as we march towards the celebration of the vernal equinox at 5:37am EDT Saturday, March 20, 2021. Rest easy gentle souls, as 2am on Sunday, November 7, 2021 will be here before you know it and order shall be restored. In the meantime, hang in there friends and know that Mount Joy Snowman sends his condolences and his blessings.

I hit 66 today. FYI, for those who are unaware there is a new resource that came online this past year that I believe to be the best site for real-time Pennsylvania observations called the Keystone Mesonet. It's a collaboration between various entities like PennDOT, DEP, FAA, Turnpike Comm., PEMA, etc. that aggregates all of their existing sensors and weather stations into one location. You can click on any individual location to view the live data, which in some cases is fairly detailed. Also has a pretty nice radar that can be overlaid. It's very user-friendly, see link and screenshot below. I may or may not have been loosely involved in said project. Enjoy! https://keystone-mesonet.org/

Well I just found the following under the NWS's snow measurement guidelines: Note: Hail accumulation is not entered with snow and ice pellets. The plot hath thicketh! It appears we have a number of erroneous snow reports in the official record books. Perhaps these guidelines are newer but in any case I think we need a full investigation conducted by a council of American Weather Forum's greatest minds. Alright alright I digress.....

Well played sir, well played.

Haha I assumed the same. However, this is supposed to be our official climate site from which our climate record is established and records/norms are broken/set, no!? I guess my expectations are just too high, naive to think there wasn't some errant reporting going on back in the day. So, I did a random spot check of the daily almanac for most of those Trace reports for June through August and sure enough they were all very warm days with substantial precip reported (i.e. T'storms and hail). But again, you'd think there would be a few more given the period of record extending back to 1889. Who knows. I will say, if my limited research is any indication, it appears as though last year's May 9th snow event was in fact the latest in the season Harrisburg has ever recorded snow. Fascinating.

Fair point but hail is so clearly a convective phenomenon associated with strong updrafts in warm season thunderstorms, one would think observers would be taught to differentiate. As you say though, they are both ice haha. And yes, if hail were able to be counted then we'd expect to see many more days during the warm season with Trace amounts listed but we don't sooooooo.........great discussion Bubbler, thanks for entertaining my tangent on this random Tuesday morning ha. Would love to hear other's thoughts.

So then the question becomes, are you allowed to record hail as snowfall?? I mean, I know it's frozen but I wouldn't think so, and then isn't that clear evidence of a discrepancy in the record keeping? When you search the databases the variable field is clearly listed as "snowfall". Perhaps some of the official observers on the site could answer. Thanks.