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Central PA and The Fringes - February 2014 Part II


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NAM is major icing south. Back up to over 1" qpf with at least .5" coming as freezing rain if not more. 

 

Also has 750 mb temperatures above freezing for central PA most of the entire event.

 

Things have clearly trended warmer today. I think the convection in the lower Mississippi valley region had the effect of amping up the 500 mb features (probably more than I anticipated) and in turn giving us a stronger primary low. This is evident in the development of a warm layer above 850 mb in the models. Even the Euro now flirts with the freezing mark around 800 mb at UNV by 12z, after about 0.65" QPF as snow.

 

I think 4-5" is reasonable for the snow and sleet accumulation for central PA. Areas farther north such as IPT should do a bit better as the warm layer is not as much of an issue.

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And here they are. Ice map includes a highlighted area where there is the best potential for a sizeable amount of sleet. If that comes to fruition it could affect snow totals on my map in that particular area. Sleet could cut things down east of that as well if warm air aloft intrudes more. Portrayed a slightly colder bias with my maps.

 

post-1507-0-07909600-1391544747_thumb.pn

 

post-1507-0-29982300-1391544765_thumb.pn

 

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Looking at that radar seems like precip will move in quicker this evening.

they moved up the start time to the warnings to 7pm probably because of that... the one difference between before this event and before the start of yesterdays is the moisture levels right now are much lower than that of Sunday night/Monday morning... some of the initial light precip will evaporate... but that could hopefully  help cool the column prior to the warm air beginning to push in

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they moved up the start time to the warnings to 7pm probably because of that... the one difference between before this event and before the start of yesterdays is the moisture levels right now are much lower than that of Sunday night/Monday morning... some of the initial light precip will evaporate... but that could hopefully  help cool the column prior to the warm air beginning to push in

Thanks, I am thinking the early the better for more snow.

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This may sound like a stupid question, but do you believe there will be any areas in the LSV (Lancaster County, specifically) that DO NOT lose power? Normally that would be a no-brainer, but I believe it is a legitimate question with all the heavy wet snow on the trees right now.

 

That's an almost impossible question to answer.  It all depends on above ground lines vs. below ground and then the structure of the major feeder lines and how and where they interconnect to the local street lines.  I would probably say that you should try to gauge things based upon previous ice storms that have the same apparent potential as this one appears to have.  Admittedly, even now we cannot know exactly how much ice successfully accretes.  Given that precip rates are anticipated to be heavy at times, that will definitely mean that not all of the liquid that falls accretes.

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high res NAM hourly plots show what some are talking about with perhaps a period of intense precip rates cooling the column and allowing snow to hang on a bit longer...(I think sleet will mix in but perhaps it keeps it more of a snow/sleet vs sleet/ice mixture).  Below you can see just before the heaviest precip rates tonight where the 850 0 line is.  Several hours later it has made virtually no progress.  Then once the precip rates diminish it blasts north all the way to i80.  This might save places in central PA from an awful ice event.  We will see. post-2304-0-10445900-1391546308_thumb.pnpost-2304-0-24859900-1391546313_thumb.pnpost-2304-0-05655700-1391546318_thumb.pn

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i agree. How are the trees in the mountain by you? that area is known for having downed trees/limbs in these situations.

I had many on my property with branches leaning yesterday... not quite as bad but still leaning this morning... PPL cleared out all trees near the power lines this summer so may luck out that way

 

18z HRRR really tries to get convective in the late frames... the precip type map shows sleet but the snow accumulation map has 2-3+" an hour rate for snow accumulation... interesting but I doubt believeable

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I think we get to .5" at least. Temps during worst freezing rain supposed to be around 25. 

at the surface certainly... there will be lots of ponding if indeed rain and not snow... just not seeing severe accretion on the trees to the level of widespread outages

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At being 30, back to 29. Models think it should be 33 right now. So ya this is going to be bad. 

wasn't our projected hight to be 32 today? i just don't think there is anyway to answer some of the questions that are being ask, imo. So many variables+ Location, location, location. I just think people need to be prepared for snow, sleet and or freezing rain.

 

the worst freezing rain events i have seen through the years, was not heavy precip. it was light precip over time.

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