Jump to content
  • Member Statistics

    17,601
    Total Members
    7,904
    Most Online
    ArlyDude
    Newest Member
    ArlyDude
    Joined

Central PA - Jan/Feb 2018


MAG5035

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, canderson said:

Companies have a tough choice tomorrow - do you close entirely? Delays won't make much sense and it'll just get worse as the day goes on. 

I assume all schools cancel tonight. 

You can say "thats how we roll"....but you roll right with it....

not ganging up, but....that was a little glaring.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 1.5k
  • Created
  • Last Reply
51 minutes ago, MAG5035 said:

Looking at the 12z guidance so far it seems things have been trending towards a bit more robust at warming 850mb the last couple runs, and having a look at a couple model generated skew-T's it appears generally the most warming occurs between 800-900mb (roughly 4-6k feet). 925mb holds in pretty strong over most of the region except the southern tier with temps in the central counties at that layer staying solidly below 0ºC for a majority (best QPF part) of the event. I look at that layer in these mix scenarios to make a determination of whether or not sleet may be a more predominant p-type vs freezing rain. 925mb is at about 3000ft or so. GFS column is not as warm as the NAM's, specifically at the aforementioned 850mb layer. I think any warning level ice that crops up will be confined to a section encompassing the Laurels and south-central ridge tops below oh roughly US route 22 and west/NW of I-81. CTP extended their watches in a thin zone south from the original area early this morning to reflect this possibility of warning ice (0.25" or so). 

This is going to be tough to pinpoint transition timing and how much transition occurs in any one area. We don't have an ideal CAD setup but we certainly have enough of one that we probably aren't going to see low level cold (up to 925mb) routed out given a pretty weak surface low. I think we'll be dealing with a majority frozen/freezing event and not much plain rain except for maybe the mason dixon line and SW PA. I've seen this song and dance before plenty of times with stronger storm systems. For south central and LSV precip rates are going to be important in determining whether those region get up to several inches of snow before mixing. Should be a pretty heavy slug of precip that comes through, and like I said yesterday the damage could get done before it changes... as in the transition doesn't occur for a big chunk of the region until precip lightens. At any rate, use caution when consulting p-type maps and snowfall maps.. especially the TT ones as they incorporate sleet with their 10:1 maps. Euro's up soon.

Thx as always man. 

I was trying to pull skew t's for KMDT this morning to support my earlier banter about what you so elequently stated above, and they wouldnt load on Pivotal.  Do you have a free site for them?  Now that I know how to read them, I enjoy using them as they give a more linear look to whats going on from top to bottom.  thx in advance

Link to comment
Share on other sites

34 minutes ago, canderson said:

That's not how we roll here ... 

Must be nice to have an employer who sees you as a bag of oxygen and hair and not a soulless sack of bones whose there to raise the quarterlies. 

 

Who is this socialist utopian ***hole you work for? I need to turn him into the Super Koch Bros., for not working you to death.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

57 minutes ago, Atomixwx said:

Must be nice to have an employer who sees you as a bag of oxygen and hair and not a soulless sack of bones whose there to raise the quarterlies. 

 

Who is this socialist utopian ***hole you work for? I need to turn him into the Super Koch Bros., for not working you to death.

 

Ha. Funny you say that ... some view us a socialist front somehow LOL. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My forecast reads just plain ugly:

Tonight
Periods of snow after 4am. Low around 23. Light and variable wind. Chance of precipitation is 90%. Total nighttime snow accumulation of 1 to 2 inches possible.

Wednesday
Periods of snow, freezing rain, and sleet before 10am, then periods of rain or freezing rain between 10am and 1pm, then periods of rain after 1pm. High near 36. Light and variable wind. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New ice accumulation of less than a 0.1 of an inch possible. New snow and sleet accumulation of less than a half inch possible.

Wednesday Night
Rain likely before 7pm, then a slight chance of showers between 7pm and 1am. Cloudy, then gradually becoming partly cloudy, with a low around 21. Light west wind becoming northwest 5 to 9 mph in the evening. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Horst:

Looking ahead into mid-month, the Polar vortex may retreat a bit into and a building ridge off the Southeastern US coast might help drive a February thaw of sorts for a few days between February 11th and 20th. As we enter late February and early March, however, I can see how the development of a Greenland block might help drive the vortex in our direction. Such a shift would make for a return of colder conditions and, perhaps, the coldest air since the opening days of January. In aggregate, February should exhibit a bit of a warm bias, despite occasional cold days with wintry precipitation.

What about our chances of a big snow storm? While February is often the snowiest month of the year in Lancaster, the current pattern does not favor a large snowfall here (but rather smaller nuisance and changeover storms). The potential for end-of-winter blocking, however, could open the door for a Nor’easter and heavier snow into early March.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, sauss06 said:

co-workers talking about us having power outages. I doubt we have an issue with that is the LSV

I'd think ice accretion will be there, but likely not too bad.  only fly in the ointment is that there is a little better CAD signal on some 18z's for berks and due north.  Let hope the cold holds in the midlevels so that we ping, and only briefly flip to ZR before we flip to just plain rain.  Ice does suck....but is only acceptable when you have sufficient snow pack (think retention)....:)

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, skiier04 said:

Worried about the pinging even up here.... I'd be thrilled with 6" let alone 8-10.

You know how these work in most of Central PA when the mid level lows go west of you. Hopefully the front end overproduces and can hold the warming off a little. I’d expect at least a decent period of sleet there but I’d say it’s a coin flip in UNV for reaching 6”. 8-10” to me is a little over generous. When I lived there I bit way too often on the snowy models in the 07-08 SWFE winter. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The 18z GFS has the Harrisburg area at around 5 inches of snow before the changeover to ice. I like the idea of 3-5 inches in the Harrisburg area. 

Dewpoints are currently in the high teens to low 20’s across CTP so we should see temps drop off as the precip moves in. The radar is really juicing up to our south & west!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

28/20 here.  Should easily drop several degrees after onset of precip...to mid twenties, which would put me about 2 degrees colder than where I was after the snow started 2 days ago.

I'm hoping for the GFS numbers of 4 to 6" right here.  There's a crazy tight gradient running from NW to SE in Cumberland county with 7" NW down to only 2" extreme SE parts.  Another strangely exciting event about to unfold.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...