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Central PA and the MD Fringes - January Part III


MAG5035

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JB is going with a Lakes cutter next week to set up a big storm a bit later. 

 

 

FWIW

 

GFS continues to insist on a half decent snow event for esp central and northern Penn over the weekend, and continuing to go in spite of the Euros lower lakes cutter (Canadian suggesting one today too). I've read the Euro has support from it's ensembles with regard to this weekend system going to the lakes but the 2/4 system later next week is in general colder and further south with snow than the operational.. which was a close call with a likely ice storm for central PA but a big snow maker in all of northern Penn above I-80. Really wish I had access to the Euro ensembles. Wouldn't sleep on either system but starting to take more of a notice to the storm next week. Given the range and minus the finer details, the strong signal from the models on a moisture laden event for the Feb 4-5 timeframe suggest a good possibility of a high impact storm traversing the country. Def not a pattern for the faint hearted, the regional forums are going to be feisty. 

 

Things really could go either way or in between for us with both of these potential systems. Not to beat a dead horse but this winter has had some striking resemblances to the oft mentioned 93/94 winter. Striking resemblences don't often yield the exact same results though, and the tendency of this winter makes me cautious. Cashing in on big snow via the southern stream when the storms were available has been the Achilles heel of this winter so far and whether that changes or not going into Feb and March will likely dictate whether or not our notably cold and snowier winter to this point continues to produce ice and rainers in between waves of cold or goes all '94 on our ass. State College would have a long way to go, they're probably over 30" so far and that one ended up at 109.3". 

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our school district told the kids before they left school today that school was cancelled tomorrow due to cold.

 

Bellwood was on a delay and they just went to closed for tomorrow... looks like all the Blair county schools are closed as well. I don't ever remember them having to close all day for cold weather, but this is the 2nd time just this winter. 

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Bellwood was on a delay and they just went to closed for tomorrow... looks like all the Blair county schools are closed as well. I don't ever remember them having to close all day for cold weather, but this is the 2nd time just this winter. 

I dont remember of them ever closing school for cold here either...I remember a few delays over the years for cold / windchill but not closings.

Dont hold me to that though as my memory isnt the best.

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GFS continues to insist on a half decent snow event for esp central and northern Penn over the weekend, and continuing to go in spite of the Euros lower lakes cutter (Canadian suggesting one today too). I've read the Euro has support from it's ensembles with regard to this weekend system going to the lakes but the 2/4 system later next week is in general colder and further south with snow than the operational.. which was a close call with a likely ice storm for central PA but a big snow maker in all of northern Penn above I-80. Really wish I had access to the Euro ensembles. Wouldn't sleep on either system but starting to take more of a notice to the storm next week. Given the range and minus the finer details, the strong signal from the models on a moisture laden event for the Feb 4-5 timeframe suggest a good possibility of a high impact storm traversing the country. Def not a pattern for the faint hearted, the regional forums are going to be feisty. 

 

Things really could go either way or in between for us with both of these potential systems. Not to beat a dead horse but this winter has had some striking resemblances to the oft mentioned 93/94 winter. Striking resemblences don't often yield the exact same results though, and the tendency of this winter makes me cautious. Cashing in on big snow via the southern stream when the storms were available has been the Achilles heel of this winter so far and whether that changes or not going into Feb and March will likely dictate whether or not our notably cold and snowier winter to this point continues to produce ice and rainers in between waves of cold or goes all '94 on our ass. State College would have a long way to go, they're probably over 30" so far and that one ended up at 109.3". 

UNV had over 40" by now, compared to the current 24.6. One caveat was Jan 94 had several storms that had ice and went above freezing for part of it. January's snow total was a whopping 32.6" but that was due to the fact January was just plain moist. Only 14 days with no precip! That's crazy for a winter month.

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Heh. Welcome to many of the winters I spent up there. 2005-06 was especially torturing. 2004-05 featured its share of 33 degree rains while just north of I-80 had icestorm after icestorm.

04-05 was decent from the second half of January to early March with around 30" total and three good snow events, but December and the first half of Jan was plain ugly and unpleasant with cold rain. December 2005 started off pretty solid but January into early February was just a plain torch fest. 8.2" of snow for Jan-Mar 2006...that's just awful.

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Bellwood was on a delay and they just went to closed for tomorrow... looks like all the Blair county schools are closed as well. I don't ever remember them having to close all day for cold weather, but this is the 2nd time just this winter. 

I remember in 94 I was in 9th grade that year at Altoona and we had 3 days off in a row because of the cold.  I believe that whole month of January we went to school a total of 5 days out of that month because of the cold, ice, and snow plus the holidays and weekends counting also of course.  We had to go to school til June 17th that year.

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GFS crept north a little more with the weekend wave making it more of a northern PA thing now with regards to snow. Euro/Canadian with the cutter. Euro doesn't really have much precip at all for us.. a quick mild up over the weekend a couple tenths of precip and back to cold...more of a frontal passage and a stronger/further NW low than the GFS going up thru the lakes. Euro interestingly has another wave that runs the frontal boundary on Mon that would suggest some snowfall running along the mason-dixon line. 

 

The big event is definitely there on all models tonight with striking agreement for the range. Euro is in the infamous "right where we would want the storm at 48 hours" position with regard to the mid week storm next week. A bit south of the GFS and it straight up throttles most of PA. 6+ for all except NW PA. 12" line runs near Pit to IPT, 18+ across southern PA. Canadian was furthest NW tonight with a snow-mix/rain-snow looking scenario. Another Gulf storm starting to gather right on the heels of the big one at the end of the run on the Euro. 200 hours to go lol.. it's gonna be a wild back and forth 7-10 days.

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I dont remember of them ever closing school for cold here either...I remember a few delays over the years for cold / windchill but not closings.

Dont hold me to that though as my memory isnt the best.

Yeah, i don't ever remember it either, even during the 90's noted bad winters. They closed alot, but from snow. I can't speak for all districts, but i do understand in a way why ours closed back on January 7th and delayed today. The way the heating system is in our school is like my house. I have it programmed for certain temps throughout the day/night. With the buildings that big, it can't recover that quickly. I listened to many people complain last time schools were closed (1-7), this one guy was really going off about it. i ask him if the district should send kids to school with no heat at all, his reply "no, that'd be bull****" my reply was well you do know UGI shut the gas off to hundreds/thousands of homes,schools and business's that morning due to an issue? i also just found out some districts have a policy if its 5 or below, its a no go, for safety concerns. So i beleive its a combination of things. There is alot of things they do or don't do now that we did when we were in school, that doesn't make it wrong.

 

 

looks like rain and 33-34 for the harrisburg region this weekend. Yeah, maybe it'll wash some of this damn salt away.

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Yeah, i don't ever remember it either, even during the 90's noted bad winters. They closed alot, but from snow. I can't speak for all districts, but i do understand in a way why ours closed back on January 7th and delayed today. The way the heating system is in our school is like my house. I have it programmed for certain temps throughout the day/night. With the buildings that big, it can't recover that quickly. I listened to many people complain last time schools were closed (1-7), this one guy was really going off about it. i ask him if the district should send kids to school with no heat at all, his reply "no, that'd be bull****" my reply was well you do know UGI shut the gas off to hundreds/thousands of homes,schools and business's that morning due to an issue? i also just found out some districts have a policy if its 5 or below, its a no go, for safety concerns. So i beleive its a combination of things. There is alot of things they do or don't do now that we did when we were in school, that doesn't make it wrong.

 

 

looks like rain and 33-34 for the harrisburg region this weekend. Yeah, maybe it'll wash some of this damn salt away.

They closed in 1994 a couple of days. Read here: http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/cold-anniversary-minus-21-plus-20-cold-facts-1.1619071

 

More: http://articles.mcall.com/1994-01-20/news/2966809_1_school-districts-presidents-day-school-officials

 

They had to, due to a state of emergency. Also, this wasn't a "yassir back in my day we's tougher them kids today's soft" sort of thing. This was a real concern that the power grid would fail. 

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They closed in 1994 a couple of days. Read here: http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/cold-anniversary-minus-21-plus-20-cold-facts-1.1619071

 

More: http://articles.mcall.com/1994-01-20/news/2966809_1_school-districts-presidents-day-school-officials

 

They had to, due to a state of emergency. Also, this wasn't a "yassir back in my day we's tougher them kids today's soft" sort of thing. This was a real concern that the power grid would fail. 

I should have been more clear, i was speaking about our district when i said i don't remember them closing for cold in the 90s, i was not speaking in general, i do remember schools throughout the state closing because of cold, And honestly, i could be wrong ours  may have also but my memory says it was snow that closed us. I also remember the concern of power grid failure. They were asking for voluntary redcutions at businesses. At one point for almost 2 weeks, our shop didn't do any work. If guys even made it in, they were plowing and or shoveling our lots and our roofs. Like many places then we received structure damage from trusses breaking. Really crazy time to live through honestly. I would be on snow removal at work for 10 hours, then come home and help shovel roofs in our town. nuts!

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steamy 3 degrees at my house when I left this morning... 6 is the min at MDT

 

with that 6 we are now at 11 days this month with a daily low below 10 degrees... still have 20 more years of data to fill in (which I should finish today) but so far that leaves MDT just 1 day off of 1988 with 12 days as most days with lows below 10

 

again still missing 20 more years but current coldest average low rankings are 1994, 1918, 1977, 1940, 1893, 2014... pretty dam impressive considering how more developed this area is now compared to those other years to factor in heat island effect/etc

 

Pittsburgh, State College, and Harrisburg all closing in on top 10/top 15 coldest January... rebound to closer to seasonable temps on Friday may bump final average temps up slightly, but will be interesting to see where temps today through thursday put averages heading into Friday

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I should have been more clear, i was speaking about our district when i said i don't remember them closing for cold in the 90s, i was not speaking in general, i do remember schools throughout the state closing because of cold, And honestly, i could be wrong ours  may have also but my memory says it was snow that closed us. I also remember the concern of power grid failure. They were asking for voluntary redcutions at businesses. At one point for almost 2 weeks, our shop didn't do any work. If guys even made it in, they were plowing and or shoveling our lots and our roofs. Like many places then we received structure damage from trusses breaking. Really crazy time to live through honestly. I would be on snow removal at work for 10 hours, then come home and help shovel roofs in our town. nuts!

I am interested in seeing what happens today with the cold around the northeast and wintry weather along the southeast coast... demand is going to be quite high in both regions and I wonder if we will hear about any outages

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I am interested in seeing what happens today with the cold around the northeast and wintry weather along the southeast coast... demand is going to be quite high in both regions and I wonder if we will hear about any outages

somewhere i read, yesterday or this morning, 14 States including PA asking for voluntary reductions in usage.

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(-3.2) this morning at Walker.

 

The 0z ECM's depiction...that is the type of storm I have been missing...the classic hit-em-all PDII style.

 

Now watch it gradually become solely an I-95 snowstorm.

I would be quite happy gving up my last shot at snow for your northern folks.  You get the screw job for every big event.

 

somewhere i read, yesterday or this morning, 14 States including PA asking for voluntary reductions in usage.

Our gas bill last month was $34.18...we kept the apartment on 69 degrees and wore a sweater.  It's 1,100 sq. ft.

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I would be quite happy gving up my last shot at snow for your northern folks.  You get the screw job for every big event.

 

Our gas bill last month was $34.18...we kept the apartment on 69 degrees and wore a sweater.  It's 1,100 sq. ft.

Our gas bill was $104. Our house is 1,900 sq ft and we keep it on 68 from 5-10 p.m. and 62 otherwise except a window around 7-9 am where it goes to 65. Everything we have is gas - dryer, water heater, furnace.

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