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Central PA - late January 2013


MAG5035

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It's the 17th anniversary of the Blizzard of 1996. I wasn't here at the time of course, so share any and all photos you have of it please!

Ahhh...such an incredible storm. Was living in north jersey then. That storm was the coldest start to a major snowstorm i ever saw. Had a low of 4 above that morning. When the snow began around 10 am it was 8 degrees. Temps were barely above 10 when the heavy snow arrived at 1pm. Got 24 inches and the warmest it got for the entire event was 17 !! Also after that event i had the deepest snowpack since 1978 with 36 inches...until the flooding rainstorm came a week later.

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After 1995 - 1996, 2002 - 2003 and 2009 - 2010, us younger kids are spoiled in the snow department.

 

You know, I can't help but wonder if that's the reason for a lot of the pessimistic posting by the younger crowd - we think, based upon our childhood memories, that a 50"+ season every 2-3 years is normal, and that seasons with less than 10" didn't happen. Truth is, there were PLENTY of seasons with <10" in the LSV in the past 25 years.

 

 

 

One of the most memorable snowfalls, for me, wasn't the blizzards of 93 or 96, or even the 09/10 season (although they will always be near the top of the list). It was the 3 feb 2009 snowfall.

 

Parts of Lanco did not have any snow (washington boro and points close to the susquehanna), yet a region 20 miles east of washington boro, from SE of strasburg through lititz received 10"+, while  just 6 miles east of the mesoscale band recorded only 1-2"

 

Good read, for those that haven't seen it.

http://nws.met.psu.edu/severe/2009/04Feb2009.pdf

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Parts of Lanco did not have any snow (washington boro and points close to the susquehanna), yet a region 20 miles east of washington boro, from SE of strasburg through lititz received 10"=, while  just 6 miles east of the mesoscale band recorded only 1-2"

 

Good read, for those that haven't seen it.

http://nws.met.psu.edu/severe/2009/04Feb2009.pdf

 

That event was truly spectacular.

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Ahhh...memories:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gN_1QooqbM

 

 

 

Thanks for the video.  I lived in Philly/Roxborough in 1996 and have never seen anything like that the rest of my life.  Neighbors banded together to shovel out others on our skinny one way street that could not get a plow down it.  KYW...News Radio...1060.

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The Big thaw follwed by the big freeze towards the end of the month!! The weakening of the PV looks prime to allow the cold air that has been locked up to start spilling into the NE later in the month. Wouldn't be surprised if areas see subzero temps the first time this year. Impressive stratospheric warming event to say the least. To bad the snowpack will be almost eaten away by then, so how much moderation during the cold snap will be difficult to say. Last night with clear skies finally back home allowed temps to get to our lowest of the year at 9F, the snowpack def helped with the radiational cooling.

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The Big thaw follwed by the big freeze towards the end of the month!! The weakening of the PV looks prime to allow the cold air that has been locked up to start spilling into the NE later in the month. Wouldn't be surprised if areas see subzero temps the first time this year. Impressive stratospheric warming event to say the least. To bad the snowpack will be almost eaten away by then, so how much moderation during the cold snap will be difficult to say. Last night with clear skies finally back home allowed temps to get to our lowest of the year at 9F, the snowpack def helped with the radiational cooling.

 

It def was quite cold on Tuesday morning, got down to 13ºF here. After watching things unfold the last several days since I last made a major post in here I'm a bit apprehensive on what will happen after we get through the torch part of our warm up this weekend. Our traditional teleconnections have looked pretty good in the forecasts, specifically the AO which is forecast to get pretty negative (result of the strat-warm event ongoing). PNA seems to stay around neutral and perhaps try to sneak into positive territory and NAO looks at least modestly negative. There's certainly going to be arctic air available to crash into the mid latitudes as we get past mid month. The issue I'm concerned about for our neck of the woods has been the MJO. When I posted back on the third, I noted the MJO was looking to traverse into phases 4 and 5, which it has and is still currently doing. Unfortunately, what was mainly looking more like a modest pulse at the time has turned into quite the strong pulse. 

 

post-1507-0-09163300-1357717315_thumb.gi

 

What I have there is the GEFS forecast, if you want to mouse over the other models listed just go to this link here.

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/CLIVAR/clivar_wh.shtml

 

Pretty much, most major models take the MJO thru 6 either into 7 or looping down towards the circle near the 6/7 border. Getting toward the end of those forecasts gets quite a bit uncertain though. At any rate, here are the temp anamolies and correlations associated with the phases. 

 

post-1507-0-46817800-1357717769_thumb.jp

 

It should be quite evident immediately that phases 4, 5, and 6 are lousy phases to be in winter weather wise. If you look at the correlation chart on the right, the bright purple end of the spectrum that encompasses the eastern US essentially means that warm spells are very highly correlated to these phases. Phase 7 is still warmish but not like 4-6 and there is a little bit less correlation. We'd be golden if the other things (NAO/AO/strat-warming, etc) were coinciding with a strong pulse like this thru 8-1-2. But mother nature has to be difficult of course, and thus we have a bit of a conflicting signal. I still think we will end up cold eventually late in the month, but it could be a fight to get there for a time. Such a thing is actually the norm more often than not. You don't usually have a light switch flip to all out arctic cold after a warm period..but rather a step-down type process.  If one has watched the models as of late and having the southeast ridge trying to delay the cold in the east as much as possible next week while we have cold dumping into the central, that can probably be attributed at least in part to the unfavorable MJO phases. Assuming our other teleconnections remain favorable, the eventual speed and strength of the MJO pulse could dictate how fast we get back to cold. Weakening (i.e going back near or into the circle) obviously would lessen it's influence. Having it continue to race thru to phase 7 and hopefully beyond instead of looping or otherwise "slowing down" in a crappy phase would help as well. Def a complicated outlook with all of this MJO stuff combined with the other teleconnections, plus i'm not an MJO expert by any means. 

 

Speaking of next week, 0z GFS and Euro were pretty meh this go around... having more of a glancing cold blast compared to some of the major cold they've been showing. The GFS takes most of the week to get back to seasonable while the Euro continues to try to press a front thru around the Mon/Tues timeframe. Euro was actually a bit interesting in that it seems to bleed low level cold into PA with precip chances. Looked like a light sleet/zr potential for the central and north Mon/Tues. 

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You know, I can't help but wonder if that's the reason for a lot of the pessimistic posting by the younger crowd - we think, based upon our childhood memories, that a 50"+ season every 2-3 years is normal, and that seasons with less than 10" didn't happen. Truth is, there were PLENTY of seasons with <10" in the LSV in the past 25 years.

 

 

 

One of the most memorable snowfalls, for me, wasn't the blizzards of 93 or 96, or even the 09/10 season (although they will always be near the top of the list). It was the 3 feb 2009 snowfall.

 

Parts of Lanco did not have any snow (washington boro and points close to the susquehanna), yet a region 20 miles east of washington boro, from SE of strasburg through lititz received 10"+, while  just 6 miles east of the mesoscale band recorded only 1-2"

 

Good read, for those that haven't seen it.

http://nws.met.psu.edu/severe/2009/04Feb2009.pdf

 

Living in Lititz, it was awesome. Reminded me of my days in Buffalo, NY with lake effect. An event like that is very rare in these parts. It was snowing to beat the band, but just a few miles away NADA. Yeah we had like 12 inches on the back deck.

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I had made a mess of my knee 11-95 and I was scheduled for surgery the day of the 96 blizzard. I called the hospital and they said the doctor is there and if I show, he will sew. my wife and I drove to the hospital and the doctor did his thing. (multiple tears ACL, PCL and LCL. also my  meniscus was floating inside my knee). I had my surgery and came home only to find every pharmacy was closed. I had to go the night with out medication.

 

The weather-- we had 20+ inches when I went to the hospital and when we came home there was another 5 +. two weeks later we had the floods of 96...

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I had made a mess of my knee 11-95 and I was scheduled for surgery the day of the 96 blizzard. I called the hospital and they said the doctor is there and if I show, he will sew. my wife and I drove to the hospital and the doctor did his thing. (multiple tears ACL, PCL and LCL. also my  meniscus was floating inside my knee). I had my surgery and came home only to find every pharmacy was closed. I had to go the night with out medication.

 

The weather-- we had 20+ inches when I went to the hospital and when we came home there was another 5 +. two weeks later we had the floods of 96...

 

Oh, man, couldn't imagine that.

 

My memory comes from Western PA. Leading up to the storm, the only forecast service to give us even a chance at snow was AccuWeather. I was at my then girlfriend's house in Weirton WV for Orthodox Christmas...I remember hoping the storm would hit but not having our hopes up. It was intensely cold, and that night at the church in Steubenville, they did the orthodox yule log burning - really a ceremonial burning of a big branch. I remember looking up and suddenly not seeing stars. 

 

I woke up to about 2" on the ground and moderate snow. TWC had the NWS forecast then, and it still had light snow, less than an inch. Then 2-4. An hour later 4-6. Then 5-10, then 6-12 then 10-15. I measured about 14" at her parents, then about 15 at my place in Mt. Washington neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Great weather experience. 

 

Holy wind earlier tonight. With temps above freezing to go with that, the snowpack is taking a pretty good hit. 

 

If you lived east of me I'd ask if you saw my grill cover. It's gone. 

 

Tonights Euro has a sneaky snow/ice threat this coming Tuesday for the central and north. 

 

Holy crap, did the models ever go from meh to pretty damn good. A flip a flop a flipflopflip. 

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12z GFS at 126 hours looks fun.

 

attachicon.gifgfs-crainsfc--conus-126-A-allcombined2.png

 

Yeah, noticed that. Cobb Data Tables show 3.5" of snow followed by .15 of ice. Of course that's irrelevant this far out but definitely some winter weather to follow next week. 

 

Actually, it seems bass-ackwards....we are supposed to have that sloppy weather during Farm Show week. 

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Yeah, noticed that. Cobb Data Tables show 3.5" of snow followed by .15 of ice. Of course that's irrelevant this far out but definitely some winter weather to follow next week. 

 

Actually, it seems bass-ackwards....we are supposed to have that sloppy weather during Farm Show week. 

 

I happen to be getting snow tires put on my Altima Tuesday, so that might end up being good timing. I found out how bad the tires on it now were in the snow during our holiday week snow blitz. 

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I happen to be getting snow tires put on my Altima Tuesday, so that might end up being good timing. I found out how bad the tires on it now were in the snow during our holiday week snow blitz. 

 

Yeah, the 18Z GFS is pretty damn bullish, lol. 

 

Did you see the Euro Ensembles in the Philly mid-long range thread? Boy, if only that was right. That's a fantastic pattern. We'll see. The way the models have been this winter, I won't get too up or down. 

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Yeah, the 18Z GFS is pretty damn bullish, lol. 

 

Did you see the Euro Ensembles in the Philly mid-long range thread? Boy, if only that was right. That's a fantastic pattern. We'll see. The way the models have been this winter, I won't get too up or down. 

 

Yea, it certainly looks pretty good as we get into the last half of the month. Also some good MJO discussion over there as well. My main concern with the whole MJO situation was that it might try to drag out above normal temps and delay the cold getting to the eastern seaboard. However, models have been generally gotten on board with ending this torch in relatively short order culminating in our potential threat on Tuesday. 

 

Speaking of the Tuesday wave, the 0z GFS squashes it under PA this run.

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The Euro follows suit with suppressing the Tuesday wave. Overall quite cold after that...but dry unfortunately. Models are still highly changeable which is typical when we're looking at a shift in the pattern. I have a feeling our Tuesday system will show back up again. 

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