Tatamy

I am in the Bethlehem area. No hail here. The back door front is actually draped north to south over Bethlehem at this hour. There is a 15 temperature difference across the front. Weather Underground data shows this well.

I actually drove down from the Binghamton area earlier today and traveled under the incipient stages of this line. I have no doubt you obtained some great shots from your spot based upon what I saw coming down I380 from the Scranton area. These cells were low topped but spectacular to watch as they evolved. Tonight I am seeing something I have not seen in the 14 years I have been here (I moved from LI). The Back door / seebreeze front has just moved a couple of miles to my west. There is about a 15 degree temperature difference across Bethlehem tonight with this front. That pales in comparison to the 25 degree difference across NYC last night with the same front. It is very rare that a front like this gets this far west from NYC.

Just to make things interesting that line of showers and thunderstorms moving across eastern PA and NW NJ is putting down some CTG lightning.

I would go with 2/78 and 1/16. 2/78 was especially dramatic with high winds and low near zero visibility’s for hours on end along with 30” of snow. 1/16 also brought 30” of snow with very high rates. As dramatic as Boxing Day was its most significant impacts were felt in eastern NJ and places to the north and east of there in the region. We only had a couple of inches from that one here.

There is light snow falling along I81 to the NE of Harrisburg just along and north of the ridge near Fort Indiantown Gap going towards Frackville. There is also some light snow along western sections of I78 at this time.

I live in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. We had a snowstorm on 11/15. Similar to this situation the models were showing heavy amounts for my area. The FV3 consistently showed 10”+ for me for 2 - 3 days prior. The Mets blew them off. The model outputs were contaminated by sleet they said. We were forecasted to get 1-3” by the NWS office. On the 15th as the storm was getting underway at 12pm and I was out on my back deck photographing the arrival of a wall of snow we were upgraded to a WSW. By 6pm we were at 8 1/2” of snow before we changed over to sleet. We picked up another 1 1/2” by the next morning to bring the storm total up to 10”. The bottom line is those who are blowing off these model outputs do so at their own risk. The FV3 proved to be correct. Many many people spent the night out on the highway because they could not get home.

Looked at the traffic map this evening and there is a lot of heavy traffic going south down through VA on I-95 and I-81. I am guessing that this is in part related to the eclipse. Hotels all over SC are booked in anticipation of this event.