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Central PA - February 2017


MAG5035

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4 hours ago, MAG5035 said:

This winter is something else. After we get a couple minor snow/mix events with arctic cold lingering underneath a raging 500 ridge a week ago, we look to finally have a really nice looking 500mb pattern for a slow moving coastal storm near the D4-6 timeframe (just in time for the one year anniversary of the big one last year)...only this time the arctic cold is evacuated from the conus (and a lot of Canada as well). We're left with what will probably be mostly a rainstorm for a majority of the area. Unfortunately that's the risk of running an undercutting storm track under a major Canadian high height center without any western US or Pac ridging. You end up with an airmass source region that is marine vs continental in nature (i.e. Pacific air). However, given that we are getting into the climo low point for the year and this looks to be a fairly well developed coastal system that takes honestly a really nice Central PA track with the associated 850 and 700 lows.. I wouldn't be surprised if there is just barely enough cold air manufactured for the higher elevation interior central counties to make for some kind of wet snow issue. Euro kinda leaves the door open for that with it's solution while the GFS seemed to have a stronger, more easterly flow from the Atlantic. Will have to monitor that.

I also saw the 12z Euro D9-10+ bomb. Not gonna comment or get too crazy on it for now.. but you see that the 500mb pattern evolves to a major western US/western Canada ridge to set up the big eastern trough and nice alignment to run a coastal. We haven't really seen any kind of a lasting or major western ridge this winter to date, so we'll see what happens as this timeframe gets closer. 

Thanks for the updates Mag.  I've been watching next week w/ a sleepy eye as I stay heavily medicated through this mess....j/k, but beer does have medicinal purposes you know.  My elixer is Magic Hat #9.  Unfortunately as you state, no cold air to tap, but maybe climo just gives us one anyways.  Lord knows now is the time for things to break our way, as we approach mid winter.  Hoping that by the weekend, some legit threats start to emerge.  Until then....

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This storm had my intrigue the last few days but didn't really grab my attention snow-wise as it looked too warm. It has my attention now. 

Euro has been flirting with the wet snow bomb solution for central PA and it looks like the GFS has made a move with that thinking, and one upped it by actually being cold enough to involve the Sus Valley with more of a SE storm track vs the Euro. It's also weaker vs the 0z Euro. 12z Canadian coming in maintains a deep low coming into SE VA and then hugging the coast more up toward New England (similar to the Euro), with p-types transitioning to snow in the higher elevation west central counties. 

While I want to be clear in saying this is about as marginal as you get with trying to get a snowstorm in terms of the thermal layers, there is a reasonable possibility that this materializes in some form. My money is on the north central/Laurels/higher elevations of the AOO/UNV/IPT corridor having the highest potential. Specifically the Laurels... which are the highest and likely to have the highest QPF. The track is fantastic.. if we had a colder airmass in place we'd be talking some kind of a 1/23/16 redux. What makes this possible is the maturity of the storm, which is progged to have a healthy upper level representation (such as a strong and well tracked 850 low). Also supposed to be a strong storm as well.. the Euro/Canadian have a near 980 low getting into the Carolinas/SE VA. So while there isn't the strong high up to the north, we still have a major gradient with the very strong low.. which will help pull down cold(er) air especially as the low gets to the coast and turns making for more of a NE flow. Speaking of gradients, the 850 u wind anomaly is insane... with -5 and greater standard dev over most of PA. That implies tremendous E and NE flow off of the Atlantic and a huge influx of moisture. Those highly anomalous st dev numbers are of the variety we saw with last years storm.

 

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1 hour ago, MAG5035 said:

This storm had my intrigue the last few days but didn't really grab my attention snow-wise as it looked too warm. It has my attention now. 

Euro has been flirting with the wet snow bomb solution for central PA and it looks like the GFS has made a move with that thinking, and one upped it by actually being cold enough to involve the Sus Valley with more of a SE storm track vs the Euro. It's also weaker vs the 0z Euro. 12z Canadian coming in maintains a deep low coming into SE VA and then hugging the coast more up toward New England (similar to the Euro), with p-types transitioning to snow in the higher elevation west central counties. 

While I want to be clear in saying this is about as marginal as you get with trying to get a snowstorm in terms of the thermal layers, there is a reasonable possibility that this materializes in some form. My money is on the north central/Laurels/higher elevations of the AOO/UNV/IPT corridor having the highest potential. Specifically the Laurels... which are the highest and likely to have the highest QPF. The track is fantastic.. if we had a colder airmass in place we'd be talking some kind of a 1/23/16 redux. What makes this possible is the maturity of the storm, which is progged to have a healthy upper level representation (such as a strong and well tracked 850 low). Also supposed to be a strong storm as well.. the Euro/Canadian have a near 980 low getting into the Carolinas/SE VA. So while there isn't the strong high up to the north, we still have a major gradient with the very strong low.. which will help pull down cold(er) air especially as the low gets to the coast and turns making for more of a NE flow. Speaking of gradients, the 850 u wind anomaly is insane... with -5 and greater standard dev over most of PA. That implies tremendous E and NE flow off of the Atlantic and a huge influx of moisture. Those highly anomalous st dev numbers are of the variety we saw with last years storm.

 

Thanks for the thoughts Mag. NAO looks to help keep this one under us and MJO is favorable but like you said....a couple degrees cooler and this board would crash. I started getting interested yesterday and am keepin both eyes open. As we are entering a new pattern it's plausible that the reshuffling of the deck has the models playing catch up. Not saying a big surprise is in the offing but like Maytown suggests...its also not impossible. 

Nut

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13 minutes ago, pasnownut said:

He's implying the capability of the storm.  Not necessarily the track. It's 100 hrs out. Let's. not nitpick backyard forecast yet.

 

Please. 

Was just looking for clarification is all. Hope you snow lovers get a good one! Going out after work to test my nephews new model plane out, great day for it. 

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16 minutes ago, Wmsptwx said:

Was just looking for clarification is all. Hope you snow lovers get a good one! Going out after work to test my nephews new model plane out, great day for it. 

You can't possibly be not rooting for this to bury you. It wasn't that long ago you were one of the biggest snow weenies on here. Come on now...the reverse psychology thing is getting old. :) 

And yes, I'm having fun. Your posts always make me smile. 

And it sure sounds like you might end up in a pretty good spot for this one. 

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11 minutes ago, Wmsptwx said:

Was just looking for clarification is all. Hope you snow lovers get a good one! Going out after work to test my nephews new model plane out, great day for it. 

Yea I wasn't going detail for detail with that one or anything, just saying if we had a half decent cold airmass in place in the NE/Mid Atlantic for this we'd be easily talking a big time widespread snowstorm... at pretty much the same date as last year. With no real cold in place it's going to be limited to interior locations with some elevation.

Don't go thinking your sitting on the sideline for this quite yet either haha. 

Today's one of those days where I really hate not having a rapid update Euro access. To top that off, I still don't have the new 12z Euro data when I should have had it like 40 mins ago. It seemed like it was good for interior PA, but since anyone in other forums post maps that are region specific to wherever they're posting.. the best I can do for the moment is present this one posted out of the New England thread. Looks pretty good for central PA. I can only imagine 925mb temps improved this run.. cuz that was a limiting factor in the overnight run.

Untitled.jpg.e4d08940777e68d4e71b7d1d6013ffc0.jpg

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18 minutes ago, MAG5035 said:

Yea I wasn't going detail for detail with that one or anything, just saying if we had a half decent cold airmass in place in the NE/Mid Atlantic for this we'd be easily talking a big time widespread snowstorm... at pretty much the same date as last year. With no real cold in place it's going to be limited to interior locations with some elevation.

Don't go thinking your sitting on the sideline for this quite yet either haha. 

Today's one of those days where I really hate not having a rapid update Euro access. To top that off, I still don't have the new 12z Euro data when I should have had it like 40 mins ago. It seemed like it was good for interior PA, but since anyone in other forums post maps that are region specific to wherever they're posting.. the best I can do for the moment is present this one posted out of the New England thread. Looks pretty good for central PA. I can only imagine 925mb temps improved this run.. cuz that was a limiting factor in the overnight run.

Untitled.jpg.e4d08940777e68d4e71b7d1d6013ffc0.jpg

That looks like it may be a good run for my area.

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48 minutes ago, maytownpawx said:

You can't possibly be not rooting for this to bury you. It wasn't that long ago you were one of the biggest snow weenies on here. Come on now...the reverse psychology thing is getting old. :) 

And yes, I'm having fun. Your posts always make me smile. 

And it sure sounds like you might end up in a pretty good spot for this one. 

Indeed I was, lol but several factors including my job make me root against most things. I wouldn't mind seeing the whole forum get warning criteria stuff, can never root against a home run. Have a good one maytown!

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1 hour ago, 2001kx said:

That looks like it may be a good run for my area.

It's not too bad, I can finally see everything now... it's like 3-4"ish where your at. Track is similar to 0z, a little bit east once it's heading toward New England. Much different precip field though. Pretty much the middle third of PA is in the 3"+.. with 6" zone starting just north of UNV and into the north central/NE as you see on the snowmap above. H-burg looked to be in the 1-3" range. The Euro was decidedly colder aloft at 850 and 925 today. 

Most of this accumulation undoubtedly comes in the 108hr timeframe, where the Euro hangs a significant deform (0.5-0.75" in 6 hr) just east of dead center thru PA up into southern NY state with a 988mb low residing just off the Delmarva. Comparing with the 0z.. that run had similar low placement but a minimum of precip in that same area with a broader heavier precip shield way to the NW. Despite the eventual strong representation of the surface and upper level lows, the precip development has seemed a bit sloppy. Both GFS and Euro run an initial wave out just barely ahead of this deepening coastal instead of an organized continuous precip shield. Organized heavier precip gets into PA as the low gets to the coast and heads up off the Delmarva. Both models were somewhat more progressive today but the GFS really had heavier precip southeast. Given the progged major fetch off the ocean I wonder if models are underdoing the precip coverage some. At any rate there's still a good bit of lead time for this (D4-5 timeframe), so I'm not putting too much stock in the details of precip and amounts. 

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Honestly I think this one is finally going to be the one the interior's been waiting for since...geez, last big one when I was in NEPA was the retrograding snow bomb of late February 2010 - famous for being a huge snowstorm down in EPA/NNJ/NYC while it was pouring rain in interior NNE. 

Not just saying that because I moved out! The pattern favors the interior on this one. There's no real block to force this one further SE to the point of the lately-classic-95-storm-fringing-80N/81W. If I were Wmspt, 2001, etc. I'd be pretty excited.

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16 minutes ago, NortheastPAWx said:

Honestly I think this one is finally going to be the one the interior's been waiting for since...geez, last big one when I was in NEPA was the retrograding snow bomb of late February 2010 - famous for being a huge snowstorm down in EPA/NNJ/NYC while it was pouring rain in interior NNE. 

Not just saying that because I moved out! The pattern favors the interior on this one. There's no real block to force this one further SE to the point of the lately-classic-95-storm-fringing-80N/81W. If I were Wmspt, 2001, etc. I'd be pretty excited.

Agreed but Nepaville would do well as currently modeled as well. 

 

Road trip home?? ;)

 

nut

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8 minutes ago, Blizzard of 93 said:

This storm for a change has been trending in the right direction for snow. The track is near perfect. Now we just need to draw in a little more cold air & get the CCB to set up in the right spot to be in real business.

Let's see if the 0z runs tonight will continue to trend in our favor ?

This one might truely be one like the old days, where 10 miles NW of the Blue mtn, they are getting smoked, while I'm kickin puddles.  Just has that feeling.  No good antecedent airmass, and any "manufacturing" of cold is usually not well modeled SE of the mtns.  Our only chance down in the LSV, is dynamic cooling at times of max QPF.  Its been a long time....but I've seen this before.  I'd sit out at the window waiting for catpaws....that never came while reports 30 miles away were mostly white.

Honestly, i'll take one for the team if this has a chance to verify.  Just because whoever can stay white the longest, has a whack at Warning criteria snowfall.

I'm gonna wish it on...even if on the sidelines.  Pull for my CPA peeps (and Nepaville just for Sh!ts n giggles :).

Nut

 

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37 minutes ago, pasnownut said:

This one might truely be one like the old days, where 10 miles NW of the Blue mtn, they are getting smoked, while I'm kickin puddles.  Just has that feeling.  No good antecedent airmass, and any "manufacturing" of cold is usually not well modeled SE of the mtns.  Our only chance down in the LSV, is dynamic cooling at times of max QPF.  Its been a long time....but I've seen this before.  I'd sit out at the window waiting for catpaws....that never came while reports 30 miles away were mostly white.

Honestly, i'll take one for the team if this has a chance to verify.  Just because whoever can stay white the longest, has a whack at Warning criteria snowfall.

I'm gonna wish it on...even if on the sidelines.  Pull for my CPA peeps (and Nepaville just for Sh!ts n giggles :).

Nut

 

Agree 100%. We've had more than our share of good times over the past decade. It's time for the people that are "supposed" to get snow, to get it. 

I want a couple of storms in February, though. :) 

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3 minutes ago, maytownpawx said:

Agree 100%. We've had more than our share of good times over the past decade. It's time for the people that are "supposed" to get snow, to get it. 

I want a couple of storms in February, though. :) 

I'm taking ONE for the team....

All bets off after this one.  I'm not that nice. ;)

 

 

Nut

 

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40 minutes ago, Wmsptwx said:

Still time to all get a decent coating! My hope is we can somehow pull out regionwide ground covering!  Maytown and Nut, you're enthusiasm is contagious. I read that thread from last year once in awhile it was first winter storm ops I was glued to.

You know, I think I've read that at least once each month since it happened. 

Fact is, we've been super spoiled down here, and the folks down south of us have been even more so. Our climatology suggests we average one 10" or greater storm every decade. Here in Lancaster, we've had at least 6-8 in the past 20 years, and I might have missed a couple. It really has been crazy. 

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