Central PA - February 2020

[Bubbler86]

45 minutes ago, Itstrainingtime said:

Amazing to me the lack of snow in the Laurel Highlands and down into WV. Not often you take a trip west on the turnpike to Pittsburgh in February and see nothing but green. 

I just had a friend from VA send me a frustrated string of texts about this fact and how Global Warming is basically putting an end to skiing in the Mid Atlantic.  I think we are just in a downtime and there will be more skiing other years but some people outside weenies like us are noticing this year. 

[pasnownut]

45 minutes ago, Itstrainingtime said:

Amazing to me the lack of snow in the Laurel Highlands and down into WV. Not often you take a trip west on the turnpike to Pittsburgh in February and see nothing but green. 

Yeah....thats for sure.  When you are lacking a 120-160 deg fetch off the lakes, and you are too far south in latitude to avoid being cut....yeah its ugly for them as well.  They have had more than a handful of events (and were snowmobiling in the laurels over the last 2 weeks....but they like most south of 80 cant hold in this pattern.  

[Bubbler86]

GFS with a coastal next week around this time.  May be cold enough...something to watch.  Similar system to Blizz's post for a day or so ago but different evolution. 

[pasnownut]

2 minutes ago, Bubbler86 said:

I just had a friend from VA send me a frustrated string of texts about this fact and how Global Warming is basically putting an end to skiing in the Mid Atlantic.  I think we are just in a downtime and there will be more skiing other years but some people outside weenies like us are noticing this year. 

you can add snowmobiing, ice fishing.....

I think you are spot on w/ it being more episodal than epidemic.  Now if 10 years from now, we are still where we are.....we're gonna need to rethink our thinking.

 

 

[Bubbler86]

1 minute ago, pasnownut said:

you can add snowmobiing, ice fishing.....

I think you are spot on w/ it being more episodal than epidemic.  Now if 10 years from now, we are still where we are.....we're gonna need to rethink our thinking.

 

 

Yea, I did not mean to leave out other sports.  Skiing is the one most people see.  That stuff will be back even if we are slowing trending warmer which is not a foregone conclusion. 

[pasnownut]

3 minutes ago, Bubbler86 said:

GFS with a coastal next week around this time.  May be cold enough...something to watch.  Similar system to Blizz's post for a day or so ago but different evolution. 

If you saw my post the other day wrt something needs to pop on the base of the trough that is getting established.....you're seeing what I was hoping for. 

CMC had a good one show up this morning....but its the cmc.....and its an op at length....and we know how this years been.  Short of that, we've got a chance. 

[pasnownut]

1 minute ago, Bubbler86 said:

Yea, I did not mean to leave out other sports.  Skiing is the one most people see.  That stuff will be back even if we are slowing trending warmer which is not a foregone conclusion. 

No worries...was just adding to your point.  I only brought the others in because unlike a ski slope....we rely solely on the lakes or synoptic events to "do our thing".

I can go to roundtop/poconos tonight and still get my snow fix in.  That's what I was gettin at.

 

 

 

[Bubbler86]

Just now, pasnownut said:

No worries...was just adding to your point.  I only brought the others in because unlike a ski slope....we rely solely on the lakes or synoptic events to "do our thing".

I can go to roundtop/poconos tonight and still get my snow fix in.  That's what I was gettin at.

 

 

 

I have to hand it to Roundtop, Whitetail, etc....for even having snow at this point.  I know it is just down a few slopes and is not at all optimal but the fact they can make it fast enough to not melt out in these conditions, especially with the frequent high humidity/warmer storms, is pretty amazing to me. 

[pasnownut]

14 minutes ago, Bubbler86 said:

I have to hand it to Roundtop, Whitetail, etc....for even having snow at this point.  I know it is just down a few slopes and is not at all optimal but the fact they can make it fast enough to not melt out in these conditions, especially with the frequent high humidity/warmer storms, is pretty amazing to me. 

Maybe someone can clarify, but I think the density of man made is greater than natural, giving it more resiliency.  I know when I skied, I preferred the real deal....but man made is better than nothing at all.  

[Bubbler86]

Completely off topic of this forum but I noticed some discussion in the MA concerning how the Euro was not overly amped for NC and VA a few days ago, while the Nam was,  and whether the Euro caved to the NAM in changing its tune.  I am of the opinion that the Euro caved.  Nothing has happened yet and it could all fall apart but the latest Euro snowfall map is so very Nam like (from days ago) minus the over exuberance the Nam puts into its totals from time to time.  I am a self professed backer of the Nam so I am going to toot the horn.  These are 10-1 totals and that may not be reality especially on hard surfaces.  The bottom map is the Euro from 48 hours ago as a compare to the top map of today's 12Z Euro. 

 

 

 

[Itstrainingtime]

29 minutes ago, pasnownut said:

Maybe someone can clarify, but I think the density of man made is greater than natural, giving it more resiliency.  I know when I skied, I preferred the real deal....but man made is better than nothing at all.  

Not sure if this is all of it, but Roundtop will make as much as 6"-8" of snow on a very good night. That means no wind or a slight breeze with a W-NW component. That snow is beat down incessantly by the cats running up and down the mountain overnight. That process continues night after night, conditions permitting so that it's essentially forming a glacier. 

To illustrate better - during a really good week of snowmaking when they can blow 24/7 they might make 50-60" of snow on select trails. When all is said and finished, that becomes a 15"-20" base. But that 15"-20" base is nothing like snow cover in our yards, it is packed and packed and packed until it's frozen solid. Then the groom puts  nice veil of corduroy on top so the skier isn't sliding on ice. 

Also, Roundtop benefits from having the vast majority of the terrain face north - they don't lose much on a sunny, dry day. High temp/high dew/fog/rain is what kills their base. Barring that they can keep going even in the skimpiest years of falling snow. 

[pasnownut]

4 minutes ago, Itstrainingtime said:

Not sure if this is all of it, but Roundtop will make as much as 6"-8" of snow on a very good night. That means no wind or a slight breeze with a W-NW component. That snow is beat down incessantly by the cats running up and down the mountain overnight. That process continues night after night, conditions permitting so that it's essentially forming a glacier. 

To illustrate better - during a really good week of snowmaking when they can blow 24/7 they might make 50-60" of snow on select trails. When all is said and finished, that becomes a 15"-20" base. But that 15"-20" base is nothing like snow cover in our yards, it is packed and packed and packed until it's frozen solid. Then the groom puts  nice veil of corduroy on top so the skier isn't sliding on ice. 

Also, Roundtop benefits from having the vast majority of the terrain face north - they don't lose much on a sunny, dry day. High temp/high dew/fog/rain is what kills their base. Barring that they can keep going even in the skimpiest years of falling snow. 

"Groomers" are basically de-oxiginating the snow....thus making whichever (real/man made) more dense.  

Some years back on the Tug Hill....my sled broke down, so I spent the day in a groomer with the Barnes Corners Sno Pals groomer operator...asking all kinds of questions to Paul as to what they do and why they do it.  As at that time, i was just getting involved w/ our club up at the cabin, and at time we had a groomer.  Pretty cool stuff if your into snow.   Sorry if the off topic stuff is boring any.  Consider it your useless trivia for the day. 

[Bubbler86]

4 minutes ago, pasnownut said:

"Groomers" are basically de-oxiginating the snow....thus making whichever (real/man made) more dense.  

Some years back on the Tug Hill....my sled broke down, so I spent the day in a groomer with the Barnes Corners Sno Pals groomer operator...asking all kinds of questions to Paul as to what they do and why they do it.  As at that time, i was just getting involved w/ our club up at the cabin, and at time we had a groomer.  Pretty cool stuff if your into snow.   Sorry if the off topic stuff is boring any.  Consider it your useless trivia for the day. 

I liked it better when I thought Roundtop had a bunch of cats they released on the mountain each night. 

[pasnownut]

10 minutes ago, Bubbler86 said:

I liked it better when I thought Roundtop had a bunch of cats they released on the mountain each night. 

That would be funny.  

[Bubbler86]

@Itstrainingtime I think you not posting the Canadian snow map for next Thursday, especially for you and @daxx  is like a sort of forced deprivation.  There have been so many snow maps this year in the 6-10" range but this is sort of rare for this specific season.

 

 

[WmsptWx]

39 minutes ago, Itstrainingtime said:

Then the groom puts  nice veil of corduroy on top so the skier isn't sliding on ice. 

And this is the difference between Roundtrip and Blue Knob. Blue Knob is an absolute iceberg no matter what time of the season or how the season has been. 

[Itstrainingtime]

6 minutes ago, Bubbler86 said:

@Itstrainingtime I think you not posting the Canadian snow map for next Thursday, especially for you and @daxx  is like a sort of forced deprivation.  There have been so many snow maps this year in the 6-10" range but this is sort of rare for this specific season.

 

 

It is forced...though I can't remember the last time I posted a snow map. 

3 minutes ago, Atomixwx said:

And this is the difference between Roundtrip and Blue Knob. Blue Knob is an absolute iceberg no matter what time of the season or how the season has been. 

Hey, my daughter is the skier of my family and so I rely on her feedback, but she swears that Roundtop does grooming better than even some of the "big boys" in the Poconos. 

[pasnownut]

Just looking over 12z ENS and it appears that the GEFS/EPS are continuing to show a quicker/better look starting around 7 days from now, and fwiw, it looked rather decent through the rest of the run.  GEPS not quite as quick, but still getting there....closer.  Gut says that as long as all stars continue to align, we may have a late season tracking session coming up.  

 

 

 

[Bubbler86]

28 minutes ago, pasnownut said:

Just looking over 12z ENS and it appears that the GEFS/EPS are continuing to show a quicker/better look starting around 7 days from now, and fwiw, it looked rather decent through the rest of the run.  GEPS not quite as quick, but still getting there....closer.  Gut says that as long as all stars continue to align, we may have a late season tracking session coming up.  

 

 

 

I definitely think today's LR shows tracking possibilities but I would not put a dime of my money betting on it.   Its always 7-10 days out so until we get into  MR or even Nam range I am skeptical.  We are just one high pressure being delayed by 12 hours from having a major snow storm tomorrow (and I still suspect someone here sees at least virga) so we were close this week. 

[MAG5035]

3 hours ago, Bubbler86 said:

Completely off topic of this forum but I noticed some discussion in the MA concerning how the Euro was not overly amped for NC and VA a few days ago, while the Nam was,  and whether the Euro caved to the NAM in changing its tune.  I am of the opinion that the Euro caved.  Nothing has happened yet and it could all fall apart but the latest Euro snowfall map is so very Nam like (from days ago) minus the over exuberance the Nam puts into its totals from time to time.  I am a self professed backer of the Nam so I am going to toot the horn.  These are 10-1 totals and that may not be reality especially on hard surfaces.  The bottom map is the Euro from 48 hours ago as a compare to the top map of today's 12Z Euro. 

I think the NAM is a little too wound up on the Southeast slider. The Euro did finally come on board from being on the non snowy end but certainly not the magnitude of the NAM, which is showing a pretty big swath of 6+ with imbedded double digits. The 12z Euro, with support of it's ensembles is showing more of a general 3-6" type snowfall from TN to Eastern NC sans the OBX. The 12z GFS/GEFS looked to be the least snowy (18z GFS coming in a lot more robust than 12z showing more TN swath and bigger totals in Eastern NC). The biggest consensus on decent snow falls on eastern NC and SE VA just below DT land. 

So looking at things, the NAM is a big outlier on it's significant totals right now. Where it does have some support from the Euro though, is a more robust snow swath starting all the way back through a significant portion of TN. Other models don't get much going until the piedmont region east of the Apps, so that would be something to watch (18z GFS noted). I think a general 2-5" event running an axis of I-40 in TN from just east of Nashville to eastern NC is pretty reasonable, with the potential for a couple 6-7"s in eastern NC... which is still a bigger event than i've seen here all winter lol. 

Good opportunity to illustrate my post the other day about the posting of the ensemble snow probs using the whole forecast length. This is a much more useful utilization of these products. Notice the Euro ensemble shows good probs of 3"+ but very limited on 6"+. I consider this a good compromise of the overall model suite right now between the very snowy 12/18z NAM , the less snowy 12z GFS/GEFS/CMC ensemble and the somewhat less snowy 12z CMC (not a lot of TN snow but similar amounts to the Euro in eastern NC). 

[Bubbler86]

30 minutes ago, MAG5035 said:

I think the NAM is a little too wound up on the Southeast slider. The Euro did finally come on board from being on the non snowy end but certainly not the magnitude of the NAM, which is showing a pretty big swath of 6+ with imbedded double digits. The 12z Euro, with support of it's ensembles is showing more of a general 3-6" type snowfall from TN to Eastern NC sans the OBX. The 12z GFS/GEFS looked to be the least snowy (18z GFS coming in a lot more robust than 12z showing more TN swath and bigger totals in Eastern NC). The biggest consensus on decent snow falls on eastern NC and SE VA just below DT land. 

So looking at things, the NAM is a big outlier on it's significant totals right now. Where it does have some support from the Euro though, is a more robust snow swath starting all the way back through a significant portion of TN. Other models don't get much going until the piedmont region east of the Apps, so that would be something to watch (18z GFS noted). I think a general 2-5" event running an axis of I-40 in TN from just east of Nashville to eastern NC is pretty reasonable, with the potential for a couple 6-7"s in eastern NC... which is still a bigger event than i've seen here all winter lol. 

Good opportunity to illustrate my post the other day about the posting of the ensemble snow probs using the whole forecast length. This is a much more useful utilization of these products. Notice the Euro ensemble shows good probs of 3"+ but very limited on 6"+. I consider this a good compromise of the overall model suite right now between the very snowy 12/18z NAM , the less snowy 12z GFS/GEFS/CMC ensemble and the somewhat less snowy 12z CMC (not a lot of TN snow but similar amounts to the Euro in eastern NC). 

 

All I had to read was "DT Land" and I smiled.  He has his own little amusement park named after him now.  The DT experience.  My post was mostly to illustrate that (albeit op's runs) we get stuck on certain thought processes such as the 84 Hour Nam is never right and the Euro is always right and thought processes can work against us sometimes.  Despite the Nam probably being over amped if someone were judging weather modeling on just this one event then they would think the Euro a waste and useless. We know that's not true but not only was the Euro the least snowy model almost everything about the eventual evolution of this system, as of today's prog's and specific to NC and VA, was wrong. It completely failed.  I did not look at the ENS for this system 2 days ago, just the OP, so my comments are limited to that information :-).

 

 

 

 

[MAG5035]

4 hours ago, pasnownut said:

Yeah....thats for sure.  When you are lacking a 120-160 deg fetch off the lakes, and you are too far south in latitude to avoid being cut....yeah its ugly for them as well.  They have had more than a handful of events (and were snowmobiling in the laurels over the last 2 weeks....but they like most south of 80 cant hold in this pattern.  

This year has had it's obvious flaws with the storm track and for the most part the Laurel's region have been dealing with the same issues as the rest of central PA. That huge coastal a couple weeks ago did deliver them a pretty good event, but yea we haven't had a northern branch regime.. like at all. I can't think of a single clipper that's gotten anywhere near our latitude all winter.. which ties into the lack of established cold and the dominant +AO and the very strong PV. That definitely puts a dent in potential snowfall not only there but in the upslope areas further down in the Mid-Atlantic Apps.  

This year is a pretty extreme case, but the Laurel's haven't had an especially snowy winter for their standards for several years it seems. Even back in 14-15 when we were in the freezer, the dominant pattern that year with the very negative EPO/++PNA countering a +NAO/AO (not the magnitude of this year) meant more of a prominent westerly or southwesterly flow.. which sent the prolific LES up into western NY and the Tug Hill. We have had a lack of established downstream blocking via the NAO region over the last several winters, which combined with a western ridge, typically sets up the NW flow (290º-320ºish) that aims LES enhanced upslope snows into that region.  

[TheDreamTraveler]

North Carolina possibly getting more snow from one storm than some of us in PA for the entire season is pretty hilarious ngl

[MAG5035]

Ouch, even H-burg has KAOO by 0.1". The only reason I have 13.9" is bc I live at the foot of the Laurel's and can score some of the upslope and LES scraps. KAOO is about 15-20mi SE of the actual city. I still have to just about double that 13.9" just to match any recent junk winter (01-02, 11-12, and 15-16 with or without the big storm) Good chance we take these numbers into March but that system near the 27th-28th has shown some potential to be something, at least for some portion of the region. 

[KPITSnow]

3 hours ago, MAG5035 said:

This year has had it's obvious flaws with the storm track and for the most part the Laurel's region have been dealing with the same issues as the rest of central PA. That huge coastal a couple weeks ago did deliver them a pretty good event, but yea we haven't had a northern branch regime.. like at all. I can't think of a single clipper that's gotten anywhere near our latitude all winter.. which ties into the lack of established cold and the dominant +AO and the very strong PV. That definitely puts a dent in potential snowfall not only there but in the upslope areas further down in the Mid-Atlantic Apps.  

This year is a pretty extreme case, but the Laurel's haven't had an especially snowy winter for their standards for several years it seems. Even back in 14-15 when we were in the freezer, the dominant pattern that year with the very negative EPO/++PNA countering a +NAO/AO (not the magnitude of this year) meant more of a prominent westerly or southwesterly flow.. which sent the prolific LES up into western NY and the Tug Hill. We have had a lack of established downstream blocking via the NAO region over the last several winters, which combined with a western ridge, typically sets up the NW flow (290º-320ºish) that aims LES enhanced upslope snows into that region.  

Very anecdotal, but I’m 35. Maybe it is just kid me, but I seem to remember clippers being unbelievably commonplace compared to now 10 years ago and when I was a child, and also LES events here in the Pittsburgh area being far more common. U don’t mean huge events but squalls, bands that would set up and drop a few inches, etc. what really stands out is that getting a few clippers/LES events in November and December seemed common with 1-2 inch type events. Those haven’t happened recently.

 

Finally, I think what really stands out is that when I was a kid the lakes froze and shutoff for LES by January. That generally isn’t the case anymore.

[Blizzard of 93]

42 minutes ago, MAG5035 said:

Ouch, even H-burg has KAOO by 0.1". The only reason I have 13.9" is bc I live at the foot of the Laurel's and can score some of the upslope and LES scraps. KAOO is about 15-20mi SE of the actual city. I still have to just about double that 13.9" just to match any recent junk winter (01-02, 11-12, and 15-16 with or without the big storm) Good chance we take these numbers into March but that system near the 27th-28th has shown some potential to be something, at least for some portion of the region. 

The 12z Euro liked the storm next Thursday. It also looks to be setting up another possible winter storm next weekend.

This could be one of the better chances that we have had in a while. The EPO looks to be heading down toward neutral by then, heading into slight negative range. The MJO is heading towards the COD.

The GFS & Canadian have also shown this storm chance for next Thursday on & off the last couple of days.

Hopefully we get a 2 week plus window to score some snow before we close the season.

[Bubbler86]

With it getting up around 40 today while S/E VA and NC get a substantial snowfall I guess it points to the fact that we do not always need a pressing High to out North East to get snow.  They are going to have surface temp issues and not sure roads get too bad but no CAD or cold to their north.  Just from above.  

 

 

[Itstrainingtime]

For southern tier county peeps, this morning has that retro 70s look...filtered sunshine through high cirrus with mid level clouds to the south. Almost looks like there might be a southern snowstorm.  I saw this sky all too frequently in the 70s and early 80s. Back then all I could do was to try and will it north...never worked out, lol 

[pasnownut]

mmmmm...mm...good

[Bubbler86]

The HRRR continues to insist that some in the LSV see some snow this evening...passing snow showers.