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Central PA - Jan/Feb 2019 Obs and Discussion


MAG5035

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1 hour ago, Superstorm said:


I think it’s why we have had so many big snowstorms in the past 25 years.

And why most of the big storms have been focused on the I-95
 

That has been the big take away for me regarding the pattern over the past 10-20 years. It sure does seem like I-95 and points east really cash in when we have a KU event. When I was a kid and teenager back in the 70's and 80's, it seemed like more of the big snowstorms were always north and west of I-95. Philly often rained while the Lehigh Valley (where I grew up) and northwest cashed in. The other thing is the frequency of such storms. How many foot+ snowstorms has the DC to NYC corridor gotten in the past, say 15 years, as opposed to times prior?

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And after I say CTP didn't seem impressed with frozen precip they put out a WWA for most of this subforum.

URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
National Weather Service State College PA
1245 PM EST Tue Jan 22 2019

PAZ006-011-012-017>019-024>028-037-041-042-045-046-049>053-
056>058-230145-
/O.NEW.KCTP.WW.Y.0008.190123T1200Z-190124T0000Z/
Potter-Cameron-Northern Clinton-Clearfield-Northern Centre-
Southern Centre-Cambria-Blair-Huntingdon-Mifflin-Juniata-Tioga-
Northern Lycoming-Sullivan-Southern Clinton-Southern Lycoming-
Union-Snyder-Montour-Northumberland-Columbia-Perry-Dauphin-
Schuylkill-
Including the cities of Coudersport, Emporium, Renovo, DuBois,
Clearfield, Philipsburg, State College, Johnstown, Altoona,
Huntingdon, Mount Union, Lewistown, Mifflintown, Mansfield,
Wellsboro, Trout Run, Laporte, Lock Haven, Williamsport,
Lewisburg, Selinsgrove, Danville, Sunbury, Shamokin, Bloomsburg,
Berwick, Newport, Harrisburg, Hershey, and Pottsville
1245 PM EST Tue Jan 22 2019

...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 7 AM TO 7 PM EST
WEDNESDAY...

* WHAT...Freezing rain and sleet expected. Total ice
  accumulations of around one tenth are expected.

* WHERE...Portions of central Pennsylvania.

* WHEN...From 7 AM to 7 PM EST Wednesday.

* ADDITIONAL DETAILS...The ice will result in difficult travel
  conditions on untreated roads.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and Pennsylvania
Turnpike Commission remind motorists to adjust speeds based on
driving conditions as winter weather impacts Pennsylvania
roadways. Visit www.511pa.com for the latest travel, roadway and
traffic conditions.

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1 minute ago, sauss06 said:

do you fellas remember.........................................................January 22-23, 2016 33" 

Remember? I'll never forget it. It's not every decade you get a almost 3 foot snowstorm...I was still too young to remember the '96 blizzard that much besides some pictures my parents took.

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5 minutes ago, sauss06 said:

do you fellas remember.........................................................January 22-23, 2016 33" 

35" for me here.  I think I was the winner for that one.  NAM had me in the bullseye repeatedly leading up to the event.  Great storm.  Already 3 years ago.  That was also another Saturday storm.

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21 minutes ago, sauss06 said:

do you fellas remember.........................................................January 22-23, 2016 33" 

I got "only" 20" out of that one. I-78 to I-81 and points SOUTHWEST got totally slammed. The three lane section of I-81 in Martinsburg, WV was reduced to one lane in spots because the plows couldn't push the snow any further. Check out my video from Monday morning going down to Weyer's Cave, VA. It starts in Hazleton where they had 12-15" and goes through the section of West Virginia that got over 40".

 

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32 minutes ago, anotherman said:


The FV3 is so bad. I’m not sure why I keep getting sucked into what it shows.

Because every model is woefully incorrect longer than a few days out so they are all just as good as the other.  Even the Euro though it seems to jump a bit less vs slowly change to where it is no where near where it was a week before. 

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6 hours ago, anotherman said:

I know this will not be a popular subject, but it may be possible that climate change is making model performance erratic.  The oceans are warmer, the circulations are changing.  It makes using analogs risky.  The players on the field are changing so the outcome of the game will be different.  I'm not sure the models can account for everything right now.

Analogs are a useful tool for overall pattern recognition when comparing with similar pattern alignments in the past and expecting reasonable similarities and potential with an upcoming pattern. But using analogs is always risky if one expects a current or forecast pattern analogged to a previous one to deliver the same finite result be it a big storm, a cold or warm air mass with the same magnitude/length or affecting the same region, said big storm (if one materializes) taking the same track or having the same strength and effects, and etc. No two patterns are ever truly the same, there's just too many variables that make up any given pattern to consider. This is especially risky when taking a lot of stock into an analog on a big winter, such as 78 which has come up a good bit with analogs for this winter. There's a reason why analogged big hitter winters like 77-78,93-94, 95-96 don't often rematerialize. Because they were truly anomalous winters in their own right. 

With regards to model performance, computer models have SST data incorporated into them. They have to.. water covers 70% of the earth's surface and water is a much better retainer of heat than land. There's a lot of behind the scenes work always going on (except for certain shut down governments) to update and tweak these computer models and there's a ton of data that gets incorporated into them to initialize a model run. So when your talking operational models making an up to 10-15 day forecast vs climatic changes over years or decades, those aforementioned numerous pattern variables would come into play into erratic performance. Variables I speak of are things such as blocking patterns and their positioning (NAO/PNA), ENSO/SOI state, Stratwarm events, tropical forcing that makes up the MJO, etc. I really haven't noticed any recent model performance to be any more erratic than it typically is, especially at range. They're always erratic getting out past day 7 unless there's an especially strong signal for something. If there's an imminent pattern change in the mid-long range computer models are always all over the place in the transition period. Look what just happened this month. Some were punting January practically before cleaning up the New Years confetti. 

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5 minutes ago, Wmsptwx said:

Ummm...why no flood watches when every model has us getting a 40 degree soaking into a water loaded snow pack? Nam just put down 2 to 4 in 33 hours.

Good question. Down here I might push 50 degrees at some point before FROPA, and according to the NWS, there is at least .50 to 1.00 inch water equivalent in the snow pack down my way. If this map is correct, 2.00" + the snow melt should give us what would be 2.50" to 3.00" of rain...on frozen ground. You'd think that down this way, at least, that would push smaller streams up toward bankfull.

 

NOHRSC_melt_24.png

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1 hour ago, Wmsptwx said:

Jumped to 29.8 here, interest turning from frz rain to flooding, though nws says nothing to see here as usual.

They seem to always want to do that. With 6" of frozen snow on the ground and inches of rain on the way.

Next snow threats appears to be 1-28 and  2-5

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