RitualOfTheTrout

Absolutely gross outside this morning, 36 with cold rain / wind / graupel / snow / mud. Anyone planning to travel for Eclipse totality? Im tentatively thinking Meadville-ish area, get 2+ minutes of totality and a headstart South from all the people in Erie. Cloud cover not looking the best, but not total overcast. Hope it gets better as we close in.

https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/map/2024-april-8 This is a pretty cool map you can see totality times for any point and click location. Thinking of doing the midway between outer edge and centrrline of totality, you still get 2+ minutes, but likely avoid traffic nightmare closer to the centerline. Close to the edge you only get a few seconds so Id probably drive a little further to get more time.

Yeah, it does seem like at least anecdotally I've gotten more damage from random Spring / Summer storms than these situations. Obviously not a reason to pay no mind to conditions later this afternoon though as the ingredients are there. Reading some discussions seems like the big jump in threat is due to expected recovery from this mornings storms. If that fails to materialize then that should put a cap on this, but also the chance it could expand further NE. NWS made mention of a special RAOB balloon as well this afternoon. I won't be mad if this busts though, not interested having any extra outdoor cleanup lol. A major shift has been made to the convective outlook for Tuesday afternoon/evening in collaboration with neighboring WFOs and the Storm Prediction Center. A rare Moderate Risk has been added to eastern OH and Enhanced Risk was added for western PA (including much of Allegheny County PA) for the threat for tornadoes, large hail, and damaging wind gusts. What has prompted this adjustment is the potential for recovery in the wake of early-morning showers/storms in eastern OH. As a warm front lifts north towards Erie, a surge of low-lvl moisture will increase CAPE within a highly sheared environment. This combination will favor supercells within the warm sector as a strong low advances into the Ohio River Valley from the west. After 2pm, the joint probability of 40kt of 0-6km shear and 1000 J/kg of surface-based CAPE increases to 80-90% (especially for eastern OH). The probability significantly drops off northeast of Pittsburgh, where models suggest cloud coverage will remain and buoyancy will be limited. The probability of severe storms could increase farther east and north from the current most-likely outlook area if sufficient heating and moisture advance into west-central PA beyond where currently expected. A special RAOB will likely be launched Tuesday afternoon at PIT to get a sense of atmospheric changes in the wake of morning showers. Overall summary: confidence is high that strong wind shear will be available to organize storms. Destabilization in the wake of the morning showers/storms will be the potential limiting factor in storm severity Tuesday afternoon.

After watching that reanalysis loop we still could have used a bit of a west trend. Meh.

Dang that would be fun. Im here for it lol

Fun day tracking squalls. Got hit several times, drove through a near whiteout around 430. Moderate snow again now, winds ripping aswell. Now that its dark starting to get some accumulation even on the road. Maybe close to half an inch since sunset.

Well, didn't have to wait long, heavy snow. Light dusting on the ground. Expecting it to melt once it lets up, then a rinse and repeat of that throughout the day.

Nope, I’m with you, hoping to see some heavy snow, even if it’s only brief. Gonna be cold and windy, might as well add some snow into the mix while it’s still possible.

Yeah, pretty impressive thunderstorm for Feb standards. Lots of lightening.

Grading on a curve now to get a "good" winter. In all seriousness though, it helps getting over it that it was a bad almost everywhere. It's not like we missed a couple good storms and everywhere else is celebrating a blockbuster. A couple of long shot windows in March for a one hit wonder maybe showing up. I'd say I'm done and ready for Spring.. but here I am. Maybe a few thunderstorms possible, looks like a pretty dynamic front coming through. At least we should get some wind.

I guess this is a case of two different things can be true. This was a nice event, we got little improvements over the 24hrs leading up to the storm, had that crazy narrow band of 7-10 inches, and most ended up with double what was expected just a day or two prior. Being right on the edge of that band was a little frustrating, glad I got under it, but literally 5 miles away got almost double what I did so from the perspective of watching radar to get it to bump just a little further North did suck a bit. I was a bit surprised driving to work this morning going through areas that got nailed by the band that snow cover was already pretty well whittled away, late Feb sun doing the dirty work. Things really start to go down hill quickly now in the regard, time to root for overnight snows or a biggie and if we get anything else enjoy watching it fall vs having realistic hopes for longevity.

Looks pretty quiet the next 7 days at least. A few transient cold shots, maybe we gut lucky and time something up.

Getting some lake enhancement action, heavy snow and wind.

That last batch not as heavy, but nice dendrites, probably high ratio stuff. Looks like a little over 3 here, might make it to 4. Not bad. Timing was good too, just after sunset helped with marginal temps at onset and I can still get a good nights rest.

Starting to shift back to the South. Glad I got to see the good rates for awhile.

Getting the goods now, best rates of the night.

It keeps tickling me, getting good dendrites now at least but waxing and waneing in intensity. Roads starting to cave.

Same, about half an inch, band is about 10 miles away. Looks like its trying to creep north and widen some too. Gonna be close.

Same, light flurries in the air now. Whomever gets under that initial band should be the stripe of winners, but good sign light snow is coming down already.

Cloud deck lowering, and air is crisp and smells like snow... Damn I tried to be out but Im back in lol

I think general 2-4 looks good, with maybe a stripe of 5 if the front end piece is real and that higher end band hit the same area.

Thats how the storm earlier this year panned out too. It does seem like it bumped north a bit from yesterday, but its still not quite there.

Need a 25-50 mile jog North to get everyone in the goods. Doable with 24hr lead time, fingers crossed.

I'm sorta torn right now between just hoping for a warm early spring and set a top 5 futility season record, or root for a big fluke event. My issue is if it snows again I'll have to start all over in the stages of grief (If you can call it that?) when I feel like now I'm almost to the acceptance stage and ready to move on. Tracking the good looks that were supposed to be setting in right now for almost a month only to have it fall apart is a real gut punch. As much as I enjoy that part of it, eventually I need some ROI to feel like it was worth it. That week in Jan was great, but if thats all she wrote its really been an awful winter. My bar was its gotta be better than last year, whelp maybe not.

If its going to be South, keep it going, Ill take another partly sunny day. Always seems like some NS shortwave mucking things up anymore, would be nice to see one of these dig in behind and phase rather than exerting to much or not enough confluence.