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Central PA & The Fringes - January 2014


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I don't necessarily agree. Going high and downgrading draws a lot more criticism than going the other way, and if they always go high and then bust low, folks are going to be reluctant to take a legitimate big storm seriously.

 

Agreed. The most common complaint is that the forecasters overhype snow amounts. Social media has made this even worse. Monday's Euro map was all over Facebook. Some will call it a bust even if the official forecasts verify.

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I am about to lock in 4-8 for NEPA, but I'm still weary of something going wrong somewhere.

i'm thinking 6 in the wyoming valley cities, 4-6 in the central susquehanna valley, and 8-10 in the poconos (Hazleton/Bear Creek/Tobyhanna as well as the rt 6 corridor in PA north of downtown Scranton.

 

with the 18Z nam in, and just wanting to make the final call, my new graphic is now up, and i'll make this the final bet on this mess.

 

post-2758-0-86656100-1388610814_thumb.pn

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i'm thinking 6 in the wyoming valley cities, 4-6 in the central susquehanna valley, and 8-10 in the poconos (Hazleton/Bear Creek/Tobyhanna as well as the rt 6 corridor in PA north of downtown Scranton.

 

with the 18Z nam in, and just wanting to make the final call, my new graphic is now up, and i'll make this the final bet on this mess.

 

attachicon.gifjan2_4_storm_rev3.png

Just want to say I really like your maps, they are clean and very easy to read. Thanks, as always, for posting them.
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Just want to say I really like your maps, they are clean and very easy to read. Thanks, as always, for posting them.

 

No problem.

 

As for how clean they are, I just do layered graphics using paint shop pro (version 15 in this case). Just think if I had the cash for Photoshop. But really, that cartography course I took as a professional elective at Penn State does help a bit in how I draw those from a layering standpoint, and the beauty comes in from practice. The big issue for me has always been a good map background. And on Win 8, the generic mapping program actually does quite a good job for that.

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I am about to lock in 4-8 for NEPA, but I'm still weary of something going wrong somewhere.

GFS wouldn't be great for you, probably a 3-6" kind of outcome, and a few inches southwest of there towards State College (My forum is freaking out over perhaps being too close to 6" rather than the sugar plum 12"+ being floated earlier). That all too familiar "Central PA middle finger" dryslot is showing up too. That will likely be real for some people, maybe particularly down towards Huntingdon/Altoona. Downsloping will probably hurt a lot over south central PA before it picks up again on the coast.

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GFS wouldn't be great for you, probably a 3-6" kind of outcome, and a few inches southwest of there towards State College (My forum is freaking out over perhaps being too close to 6" rather than the sugar plum 12"+ being floated earlier). That all too familiar "Central PA middle finger" dryslot is showing up too. That will likely be real for some people, maybe particularly down towards Huntingdon/Altoona. Downsloping will probably hurt a lot over south central PA before it picks up again on the coast.

Fortunately the GFS seems to be on its own - everyone else appears to be offering up 0.4-0.6 QPF.

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My guess right now is 4" makes it down to Route 22, and east of I-83 generally. 8" within 50 miles of the NY border. There maybe an area around Bedford, Huntingdon over towards Gettysburg that gets 1-3" due to downslope. The Laurels and Allegheny slopes are 4-6", maybe locally 8" up into Clearfield County and north.

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I'm thinking 18 to 1 is possible?? It's going to be like 15 out lol.

Ratios have nothing to do with ground temperatures. They depend on at what temperature they grow at within the cloud. -12 to -18C is the best because that forms dendrite flakes which are the highest ratio. Too cold and you can actually have needle flakes which are low-ratio. I remember seeing those on 1/22/05 in State College, and the ratios never got much above 10-1.

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LOL...no I hope we all get a nice accumulation, though I feel like 2 or 3 is the ceiling.

Thinking 3-5" IPT but really haven't been following the weather that close this week.

Edit: 4-6" would seem better

Wife had hip replacement Monday, home today..... Finally getting time to check this storm out.

GFS not really in agreement. I wonder is it gonna do about face on tonight's run.

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My grid forecast

Thursday Cloudy...snow...mainly in the afternoon. Snow accumulation around an inch. Highs in the lower 30s. East winds 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 80 percent.

Thursday Night Snow. Total snow accumulation of 4 to 6 inches. Colder with lows around 10. Northeast winds 10 to 15 mph...becoming north 15 to 20 mph with gusts up to 30 mph after midnight. Chance of snow near 100 percent.

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0z suite should seal the deal in terms of forecasts. I'll stay at my 4-8" call.

 

Got to admit though, this segment of the BGM discussion gets me giddy:

 

WAA OCCURS DURG THE DAY...YET

700 MB TEMPS FALL DURG THE DAY AS THE TEMP GRAD AT 700 MB DROPS TO
THE SE BY AFTERNOON. THIS IS A SIGN OF STRG LIFTG WHICH REACHES NE
PA/SERN NY BY THU PM. IN ADDTN 700 MB TEMPS ARE RUNNING BTWN -12C TO
-18C THE ZONE OF MAXIMUM ICE CRYSTAL FORMATION FOR THIS WHOLE EVENT.
THUS WE BELIEVE THERE WILL BE VERY EFFICIENT SNOW GROWTH AND
HIGHER SNOW TO QPF RATIOS. WE ARE THINKING POTENTIALLY 15 OR 20 TO 1
RATIOS.

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Hmm... this is interesting...

 

post-300-0-14030200-1388631397_thumb.gif

 

post-300-0-27066200-1388631437_thumb.gif

 

Looks like the high cloud shield is more developed/further north than projected, at least WRT the Hi-Res NAM. Does that mean the storm is stronger than expected at this juncture? ... The GFS looks pretty good with the clouds, though.

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Random thought -

 

With this snow likely being of the dry, powdery type - would that leave it less likely to melt away during the Sunday/Monday rain event with temps probably not topping 40?

 

On a side note, our forecast Monday is a high of 40, followed by a low of 1.

You actually want more wet, dense snow to stay around when there's a warmup. The dry kind blows away, compacts, and melts faster because there's less water in it. I'm sure the snow in my backyard will be gone by early next week-we're probably going to at least hit 50 on Long Island and then have rain.

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You actually want more wet, dense snow to stay around when there's a warmup. The dry kind blows away, compacts, and melts faster because there's less water in it. I'm sure the snow in my backyard will be gone by early next week-we're probably going to at least hit 50 on Long Island and then have rain.

Damn...just will have to hope for cooler-than-expected temps Sunday and Monday. Would really suck to have the next round of the arctic blast hit without a snowpack.

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