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Central PA - December 2017

MAG5035

By MAG5035,
in Upstate New York/Pennsylvania

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MillvilleWx

MillvilleWx

Posted
Posted

Boy. That was a pleasant bust on my snow call earlier. Didn’t want to go too bullish on the call, but it did look like cold could overperform based on forecast soundings. Glad to see some here got some flakes! It was a cold rain down here, but went well with sleeping for night shift. Enjoy everyone. Looks like an interesting long range pattern setting up


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Blizzard of 93

Blizzard of 93

Posted
Posted

There was a good period of wet snow & sleet in Harrisburg this afternoon. The snow came down moderately for awhile. The car tops got a light covering.

It was great to have some wintry weather especially after the very warm fall Temperatures that we experienced. The upcoming pattern does look very encouraging, so hopefully today was an early sign of good times ahead this winter!

 

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Eskimo Joe

Eskimo Joe

Posted
Posted
20 hours ago, Voyager said:

Had about 1.5" on my Jeep when I got back to Hazleton from running two Tioga's today. Talk about a lot of miles. Anyway, it seemed as if the best accumulations were above 1,500 ft here along I-81. The snow level itself was about 1,000 ft as Hometown had a coating, but one mile down the hill in Tamaqua, at 800 ft, we had nothing.

Hazelton to Tioga and back twice in 1 day?  That's kicking butt bigly.

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Eskimo Joe

Eskimo Joe

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14 hours ago, Voyager said:

Yup, 588 miles total for the day. Thank God they are drop and hooks, and I don't have to wait to get unloaded...

Those are the easiest from what I've been told.  We were in Wilkes-Barre a few weeks and and it's amazing how many shipping center have popped up on I-80 near Gordon, PA.

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pasnownut

pasnownut

Posted
Posted

Just took a peek as 0z ensembles and still seeing the zonalish flow through next weekend, then a Western ridge and Eastern trough looks to take shape aoa Turkey day, and and nice storm pops offshore.  Looks seasonal to below once we get to Turk day, and I'm fine with that.

FWIW ensembles look similar in evolution especially Thanksgiving week which tells me that what has been discussed in other subforums as to the nice pattern evolving looks to have legs as we head into the holiday season.

Fun times ahead with a few flakes for some....

Nut

 

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Voyager

Voyager

Posted
Posted
8 hours ago, Eskimo Joe said:

Those are the easiest from what I've been told.  We were in Wilkes-Barre a few weeks and and it's amazing how many shipping center have popped up on I-80 near Gordon, PA.

Yeah, drop and hooks a pretty much cake compared to waiting for what we call a live unload.

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Voyager

Voyager

Posted
Posted
8 hours ago, canderson said:

Unrelated but hope the job situation settles itself out best for you, whatever happens. 

Thanks. The way I see it, if we're out, we'll get laid off. Then I can visit my mom in Arizona for a few weeks, and then start the job hunt when (if) I return to PA. 

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Itstrainingtime

Itstrainingtime

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, sauss06 said:

i have a feeling im gonna be cold in Happy Valley tomorrow

You'll be freezing when those lots open at 7am tomorrow. At least by kick off the sun and relative lack of wind will help...plus it will help being packed in like sardines in the 'Beav. Just hope the dude sitting next to you isn't as big as I am. :) 

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MillvilleWx

MillvilleWx

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1 hour ago, Blizzard of 93 said:

It looks like Harrisburg tied the record low at MDT last night & then will also have another record low for today. 

CTP is also advertising some light wintry mix late Sunday & Monday am. Does Anyone have any throughts on this system?

Shortwave looks to dive southeast from the Northern Plains with vort max rotating through the area overnight Sunday into Monday. The question will be about timing of the feature and the cold lingering over the state from the residual high pressure left behind our powerful surface ridge today. Right now, it is extremely borderline and thermal profiles are nestled at around +1C to -1C at 850 and 925mb. The further north you go away from say Rt 30, the better chance you would have at seeing frozen precip, or if you're parked above 1100'. The Nam Nest is the coldest of the models so far with the global's only giving love to those north of MDT at this point. Take a look at how close it is just using the Nam Nest on Bufkit. The first profile is out of HGR (Hagerstown), the second is out of MDT and the 3rd is out of UNV. The further north you go, the slightly better the profile looks, which would make all the difference in the world. The shortwave looks fairly solid based on models at H5, so there could be some surprises for a few people if it holds this look.

 

Hagerstown

5a06e5852a25d_hgrprofile.thumb.PNG.91841dbee061794a06435e4d6e83d255.PNG

This is the only hour the model has snow at Hagerstown, but the thermal profile is literally teetering on the edge, but just cold enough above the surface. Rest is just some rain at a cold 33F.

 

Harrisburg 

5a06e5dc19b57_mdtprofile.thumb.PNG.582edf5296eb0b3fc367e448153b9912.PNG

 

This is Harrisburg's best look during the system. It's a bit colder than HGR, thus a better sig for some flakes. The model prints a few hours of snow and a few hours of ZR during the system before it exits and temps warm up above freezing. Once the heavier precip funnels overhead, the dew point depression drops temp below freezing and we see a change to frozen for a time Monday morning. Small warm nose at 925 could play a role in the precip type if it came to this, but more moderate precip could overcome this.

 

State College

5a06e65dc4aeb_unvprofile.thumb.PNG.0cc805844faf668ff7bba5257b3e3be2.PNG

 

Then there's the best looking thermal profile in State College where it shows a few hours of snow with ZR on front and back before ending.

 

It's not a bad look, and one that could honestly trend better if the high pressure is a bit slower to move out, which would help trend things a bit colder and move the freezing line a touch south. 

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MillvilleWx

MillvilleWx

Posted
Posted
Just now, Wmsptwx said:

Oh I definitely agree, ctp has us only at 40pct chance of precip so was wondering.

Yeah. I think the precip field weakens once you get above I-80. I like where MAG sits with this one and areas like Altoona and Johnstown to State College. Harrisburg is on the fence. Not a whole lot of accumulating precip, but could be a little slick in CPA down to MD line if everything falls right. 

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Blizzard of 93

Blizzard of 93

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Posted
41 minutes ago, MillvilleWx said:

Shortwave looks to dive southeast from the Northern Plains with vort max rotating through the area overnight Sunday into Monday. The question will be about timing of the feature and the cold lingering over the state from the residual high pressure left behind our powerful surface ridge today. Right now, it is extremely borderline and thermal profiles are nestled at around +1C to -1C at 850 and 925mb. The further north you go away from say Rt 30, the better chance you would have at seeing frozen precip, or if you're parked above 1100'. The Nam Nest is the coldest of the models so far with the global's only giving love to those north of MDT at this point. Take a look at how close it is just using the Nam Nest on Bufkit. The first profile is out of HGR (Hagerstown), the second is out of MDT and the 3rd is out of UNV. The further north you go, the slightly better the profile looks, which would make all the difference in the world. The shortwave looks fairly solid based on models at H5, so there could be some surprises for a few people if it holds this look.

 

Hagerstown

5a06e5852a25d_hgrprofile.thumb.PNG.91841dbee061794a06435e4d6e83d255.PNG

This is the only hour the model has snow at Hagerstown, but the thermal profile is literally teetering on the edge, but just cold enough above the surface. Rest is just some rain at a cold 33F.

 

Harrisburg 

5a06e5dc19b57_mdtprofile.thumb.PNG.582edf5296eb0b3fc367e448153b9912.PNG

 

This is Harrisburg's best look during the system. It's a bit colder than HGR, thus a better sig for some flakes. The model prints a few hours of snow and a few hours of ZR during the system before it exits and temps warm up above freezing. Once the heavier precip funnels overhead, the dew point depression drops temp below freezing and we see a change to frozen for a time Monday morning. Small warm nose at 925 could play a role in the precip type if it came to this, but more moderate precip could overcome this.

 

State College

5a06e65dc4aeb_unvprofile.thumb.PNG.0cc805844faf668ff7bba5257b3e3be2.PNG

 

Then there's the best looking thermal profile in State College where it shows a few hours of snow with ZR on front and back before ending.

 

It's not a bad look, and one that could honestly trend better if the high pressure is a bit slower to move out, which would help trend things a bit colder and move the freezing line a touch south. 

Thanks for the great write up on this !

I look forward to tracking all the winter events here this year with our Central PA group.

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Voyager

Voyager

Posted
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1 hour ago, MillvilleWx said:

Yeah, it's not a prolific precip maker, but snow is snow lol. Especially early in the season. Plus, even light ZR is worthy of discussion. 

Especially since my Monday run leaves Hazleton at 3:00am going to Ruff's Dale (New Stanton area) and I'll be taking the 'pike west from Carlisle. I'm guessing the Laurels could get a bit dicey during the early morning hours...

Side note. We got down to 16 this morning in Tamaqua.

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MAG5035

MAG5035

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7 hours ago, MillvilleWx said:

Yeah. I think the precip field weakens once you get above I-80. I like where MAG sits with this one and areas like Altoona and Johnstown to State College. Harrisburg is on the fence. Not a whole lot of accumulating precip, but could be a little slick in CPA down to MD line if everything falls right. 

Unfortunately I'm out of state for the weekend so I'll be missing out on whatever happens haha. As you guys mentioned QPF doesn't look too impressive, so it will be a minor event from that perspective. However the prospect of a wintry mix and ZR will be one to keep an eye on given how cold temps will be this weekend preceding the event. 12z NAM seems a bit quicker than 12z Euro/GFS with precip, making it more of an overnight Sunday into Monday morning thing. It's also more robust with precip especially in the Sus Valley. 12z GFS and Euro don't get much at all into the Susquehanna Valley. So we'll have to see how that shakes out getting into the short/near term. The last event kinda snuck up on being much more robust with precip. 

I do think we will see the first winter headlines of the season at least in the Laurel's/central counties...likely advisories for a potential of a trace of ZR. Keep in mind the NWS introduced a pretty simplified breakdown of their winter headlines. Gone are specific freezing rain advisories for instance, straight zr events on the more minor scale are now going to be categorized as a regular winter weather advisory. Not sure how I feel about that particular one, given a minor freezing rain event can have some of the most severe impacts from a traffic standpoint...but I can see the need for simplifying headlines to get the message across.. I do believe they will be issuing more specific products for snow squalls this year as well, sort of like severe thunderstorm warnings. 

nws-winter-alerts-diagram.jpg.3b4448965e4171db275bd3595f21bdd4.jpg

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