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Central PA Late January Thread Part III


Rick G

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Always funny living in Waynesboro, Pa and working in Hagerstown, MD. It's a difference of 10 miles, but are serviced by two different NWS bureaus, and it never fails that they disagree on most storms. Baltimore is bullish on the sleet and icing for the area, while State College appears to be calling for a changeover not only tomorrow night, but also during the day as well. Even so, SC has issued a WSW for Franklin County and Balt only has Hagerstown up for a WWA. Confused? That makes two of us.

Perhaps someone can shed some light on the forecast for this area because the NWS has been a joke recently.

It looks like State College decided to go straight to a Winter Storm Warning that comes into effect 1AM Tuesday, while Baltimore went with an Advisory for tonight's event and leave a Winter Storm Watch for the main event Tuesday night into Wednesday, likely expecting a more Warning worthy event at that time. It's all in the preference I would imagine. I'm from Greencastle by the way, it's even worse here. I live about 3 miles north of the Mason-Dixon, so it's always interesting to compare.

From Baltimore:

...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM MIDNIGHT TONIGHT TO

NOON EST TUESDAY...

...WINTER STORM WATCH NOW IN EFFECT FROM TUESDAY AFTERNOON

THROUGH WEDNESDAY MORNING...

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anyone think the 18z NAM came in to warm? hopefully it goes back to the 12Z at 00Z. I can't stand sleet, its sooooo boring, eventhough ice is more dangerous at least its interesting

tbh this is going to be a nowcasting event...one thing to note is that the models have trended colder and colder all year long leading up to events.

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anyone think the 18z NAM came in to warm? hopefully it goes back to the 12Z at 00Z. I can't stand sleet, its sooooo boring, eventhough ice is more dangerous at least its interesting

How far are you from the NY border?I thinki if ur right up by it then mainly snow is what you will get there.

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How far are you from the NY border?I thinki if ur right up by it then mainly snow is what you will get there.

literally 1 mile, I was worried about changing over to sleet and that cutting into my totals and the 18z just confirmed my pessimism. I'm going to skip classes if we have them, this is the first chance all year to enjoy a possible 12" storm and I'm not going to let it pass. The next set of runs are going to be huge for me to see if I'm going to mix or not, if they continue to show cooler solutions then hopefully those further to the south of me can join in on the snow fun :thumbsup:

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:lol:

I thought the same thing. I figure we'll see some variations through tomorrow afternoon....depending on how well a particular model is doing with the cold air and high pressure placement.

yeah, I think this is one storm where 50 miles will make a huge difference in type of precip that falls.Everyone will get alot, just what kind .I think those near the NY border could end up with over a foot while central Pa may end up with 3 or 4 inches.

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Meh...jumped out to sea for the most part. 3-6" SCPA, 1-3" north. And no NYC doesn't get crushed, they get 3-6" also.

Typical se bias for the gfs. Other models track it further nw.I would expect the gfs to eventually bring it back nw. ggem, euro and dgex look like a nice hit for us on sat.

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anyone think the 18z NAM came in to warm? hopefully it goes back to the 12Z at 00Z. I can't stand sleet, its sooooo boring, eventhough ice is more dangerous at least its interesting

Haha, hey sleet can be underrated really. If you get some sleet in your snowpack it'll last forever. The verdicts still out yet on if the other models/New NAM are too warm. I still would place my weight at this short term range on the NAM/SREF for ptypes and thermal profiles since they are displaying the best illustration of what things should be like with a high in place. And its always a fight in central PA with these types of events with a high. I wanna see what happens tonight/tomorrow morning with respect to the placement of this initial snowfall. But before i get too involved with discussing the rest of the region, I'll say that Potter County and especially near the NY border will stay mainly snow with perhaps a short period where sleet gets involved. Should be at least a good 8-12" there I think.

I went a lil more in depth looking at the 18z NAM a bit ago. The 850s are def warmer than they were as you can see from the hour 39 that JMister put up. Theres still a decided dent through CPA at 850, with the +2 line dipping to near State College or so and the +4 dipping all the way down in MD. I also had a look at the 925 level, and these temps are still anchored easily below freezing with the 0 line running nearer to the MD border, the -2 dipping to KAOO, and UNV near the -4 line. This is hour 39.. at precip arrival.

What I found most interesting was at hour 42, the heavier precip moving in actually collapses the 850 back into north central PA getting the 0 line roughly to i'd say northern clearfield or far nothern centre, and sending the +2 line all the way below KAOO and then lifting back up in the Sus Valley (for instance MDT on the +4 line at 850). However at 925, places like UNV never get warmer than about -2 to -4ºC, and MDT is about 0 to -2 the whole event. To put it simply, it still suggests to me that the central counties see more sleet than freezing rain, and the far north central along the ny border is probably mainly snow, with a point where sleet might mix in. I think someone in central along the I-80 corridor somewhere might actually deal with an inch or two of sleet.

Where i'm still most concerned with damaging ice is the Laurels, the higher ridges of the central ridge and valley under I-80, the Susquehanna valley above the turnpike, and the higher parts of the Pocono's. Below the turnpike in places like York and Lancaster, there should be a change to plain rain at some point keeping ice accums while still significant, probably not of the highly damaging variety (>.50 accretion).

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Haha, hey sleet can be underrated really. If you get some sleet in your snowpack it'll last forever. The verdicts still out yet on if the other models/New NAM are too warm. I still would place my weight at this short term range on the NAM/SREF for ptypes and thermal profiles since they are displaying the best illustration of what things should be like with a high in place. And its always a fight in central PA with these types of events with a high. I wanna see what happens tonight/tomorrow morning with respect to the placement of this initial snowfall. But before i get too involved with discussing the rest of the region, I'll say that Potter County and especially near the NY border will stay mainly snow with perhaps a short period where sleet gets involved. Should be at least a good 8-12" there I think.

I went a lil more in depth looking at the 18z NAM a bit ago. The 850s are def warmer than they were as you can see from the hour 39 that JMister put up. Theres still a decided dent through CPA at 850, with the +2 line dipping to near State College or so and the +4 dipping all the way down in MD. I also had a look at the 925 level, and these temps are still anchored easily below freezing with the 0 line running nearer to the MD border, the -2 dipping to KAOO, and UNV near the -4 line. This is hour 39.. at precip arrival.

What I found most interesting was at hour 42, the heavier precip moving in actually collapses the 850 back into north central PA getting the 0 line roughly to i'd say northern clearfield or far nothern centre, and sending the +2 line all the way below KAOO and then lifting back up in the Sus Valley (for instance MDT on the +4 line at 850). However at 925, places like UNV never get warmer than about -2 to -4ºC, and MDT is about 0 to -2 the whole event. To put it simply, it still suggests to me that the central counties see more sleet than freezing rain, and the far north central along the ny border is probably mainly snow, with a point where sleet might mix in. I think someone in central along the I-80 corridor somewhere might actually deal with an inch or two of sleet.

Where i'm still most concerned with damaging ice is the Laurels, the higher ridges of the central ridge and valley under I-80, the Susquehanna valley above the turnpike, and the higher parts of the Pocono's. Below the turnpike in places like York and Lancaster, there should be a change to plain rain at some point keeping ice accums while still significant, probably not of the highly damaging variety (>.50 accretion).

good write up,thanks.

i cant believe im rooting for sleet.

but at this point i will take it all in sleet as long as i dont get freezing rain / rain.

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i know we probably sound like huge weenies saying that but I agree, this is going to be a monster ice storm for our areas imo.

Every time the models say it will warm up it never does. 3 ice storm I have seen here they said it would go above freezing and it never did till the event was over or not at all. Via the 2 ice storms in 2008 are good examples. I think they called for under .25" ice we got .5".

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