Central PA - Winter 2020/2021 Part 2

[Cashtown_Coop]

15 minutes ago, Mount Joy Snowman said:

Harrisburg hit -1 during that March 2015 cold outbreak, its coldest March temp ever recorded.  I hit -3 at my house during that time.  The coldest temp I have ever recorded in my brief ten years of keeping data was -5.2 at 6:38am on January 1, 2018.  That was during a stretch of 14 consecutive days we had where the temp never reached freezing, one shy of the all-time record of 15.

I had -10 for a low with an 11” snow depth.  Crazy thinking back 

[Bubbler86]

Just now, Cashtown_Coop said:

I had -10 for a low with an 11” snow depth.  Crazy thinking back 

Well whatever I was looking at was not record temps then.   Sorry about the confusion 

[Jns2183]

I remember how shocked I was to find huge qpf disparity between capital city and kmdt within the last 20 years. The best I could do as spot check some of the anomalies outside summer thunderstorm ones and discovered they seemed to coalesce around events with precipitation with a strong sw to Ne and ssw to nne movement component with led me to decide that the most likely reason was a rain shadow from Reeser’s summit. Still is quite shocking to me the magnitude of it


.

[canderson]

46 is my current daily high wind gust - expect to best that overnight. 

[Mount Joy Snowman]

52 minutes ago, losetoa6 said:

Below 0 in March in this general area has to be like a 50 year deal or more.  Extremely impressive. 

As far as cold in general Ofc 1994 is the benchmark imby . Several (-5 to -14 F nights along with a few single digit highs and 1 day that hung around 0 all day .

1994 ice storms:

From the ice I Had to use hammer and chisel weekly to break my car tires out and a rubber mallet on the roof and hood 

January of 1994 will live in infamy for its cold records. What a month that was. 

[TimB]

1 hour ago, Bubbler86 said:

So MDT has a legit chance to break 3 low records temps this week based on a blend of the GFS, Euro and CMC.  March 5th, March 7th and March 8th (with the CMC temp on the 8th being the coldest temp ever recorded at MDT in March.

From a PIT person, the GFS and Euro spent a lot of time teasing us with temps in the double digits below zero range on various days for the second and third week of February, sometimes as low as -19, usually about a week out, and were often in agreement on such barely-precedented cold. The lowest temperature we recorded in February was +2, and on many of those days our lows were closer to 20.

[Santa Clause]

My power has been out for two hours lol.

[TheDreamTraveler]

1 hour ago, Wmsptwx said:

My power has been out for two hours lol.

with the way mine was blowing i thought the same was gonna happen. hope you get yours back soon. that sucks

[Bubbler86]

Some wind blown flurries here.  March roars in.  Lol

[paweather]

With no snow it doesn’t matter to me.  

[Blizzard of 93]

4 hours ago, Jns2183 said:

I remember how shocked I was to find huge qpf disparity between capital city and kmdt within the last 20 years. The best I could do as spot check some of the anomalies outside summer thunderstorm ones and discovered they seemed to coalesce around events with precipitation with a strong sw to Ne and ssw to nne movement component with led me to decide that the most likely reason was a rain shadow from Reeser’s summit. Still is quite shocking to me the magnitude of it


.

Maybe the observer has something to do with it.... Lol...!

[Blizzard of 93]

4 hours ago, canderson said:

46 is my current daily high wind gust - expect to best that overnight. 

Did you ever find your recycling container today?

I might lose sleep because of this...!

[canderson]

1 minute ago, Blizzard of 93 said:

Did you ever find your recycling container today?

I might lose sleep because of this...!

Nope - I’ll go hung tomorrow. It might be in the river honestly. 

Pretty sure I just hit 52 mph. My anemometer is cheap but pretty accurate. 

[Blizzard of 93]

1 hour ago, paweather said:

With no snow it doesn’t matter to me.  

We are not done yet with snow chances...March is just getting started!

The MJO looks to go from phase 8 towards 1 and then possibly phase 2 by mid month. 

The Euro Weeklies show the -NAO also returning for the last 2 weeks of March.

[CarlislePaWx]

3 hours ago, Mount Joy Snowman said:

January of 1994 will live in infamy for its cold records. What a month that was. 

MDT's coldest temperature ever recorded in its history going back to 1888 was -22F on Jan 21, 1994.  Many locations in northern NJ saw temps of -25 to -30 with -32F degrees recorded from Hainesville, in Sussex County, the coldest temp in the state on that day.  I remember the day so well because my business partner and I were visiting the Weather Channel on that very day to discuss providing them access to our private meso-net that we founded during the early to mid 90's throughout NJ.  My station in Morris County only dropped to -8F but my partner's in Sparta (again Sussex County, northwestern most county in the state) dropped to -28F.  And, as excited as we were to spend the entire day there, we both were bummed that we were missing out on personally witnessing some of the coldest readings ever recorded in NJ climate history.  I'm pretty sure the all-time coldest minimum temp ever recorded was from Passaic or Bergen County with -36F in 1934.  Meanwhile, at TWC headquarters, located in Smyrna, a northern suburb of Atlanta, I shot video throughout the day there.  Any of you aged mid 40s and older (now), probably remembers some of the all-time favorites from the best years in their history (in my opinion) which ran from around 1985 to 2000.  I spent several hours with Jim Cantore as he showed us around the studios and their weather center.  He was rather young back in 1994 and had a full head of hair!  Others in my video included Declan Cannon, RIch Johnson, Dennis Smith, Vivian Brown, Jeanetta Jones, Coleen Wine, Mark Mancuso and several other greats whose names escape me at the moment.  Their lead forecaster at that time was Stu Ostro who started with them from day 1 back in August of 1982 and was still with them as recently as a few years ago.  I could go on and on but my post is already a bit long.  I just enjoy reminiscing about weather extremes from the past.

[Santa Clause]

Power is....still out lol.

[MAG5035]

It looks like we're going to come up dry this week on our best looking nearer term window for anything with respect to the teleconnections, which seems to be approx Mar 4-7. This is where we see the PNA briefly neutralize and the NAO/AO fairly negative. However, the deep 500mb low retro-ing underneath the NAO block to about eastern most Quebec/Labrador and the mean 500mb ridge pressing into the central US puts us on the back end of the trough, which will stuff the progged wave around Mar 6th way south through the SE US and out. The result for us looks like a chilly but relatively quiet week this week before presumably some moderation next week as we flip the NAO/AO positive and PNA negative again. 

As was just posted above with the MJO, we could have a run through phase 2-3 eventually later this month. FMA temp anomalies have a pretty strong correlation to NE/Great Lakes cold in those two phases, so if that were to come to fruition we could conceivably see a favorable period materialize 2nd half of the month.. especially with seasonal shortening of wavelengths and amplification. Im generally ready for warmer spring-like weather after about March 15th or so unless it's a go big or go home situation, so I'd hope we can see a late March/early April 2018 type deal if it's going to be colder than average and unsettled the back half of the month. Either way, I don't really see any real northeastern spring fling breakouts right now. 

[Voyager]

Just what I need. A cold and snowy March to follow a snowy February. Whatever happened to frontloaded winters? I hate backloaded ones...

[CoralRed]

3 hours ago, Wmsptwx said:

Power is....still out lol.

Hope you get it back soon and don't have to throw out any food.  We and some others had their power out in Williamsport for something like 14 hours a couple of years ago and we didn't like it at all!  I am not sure where all the flashlights are or if the batteries are any good.  I should probably look tomorrow.  It is so easy to take heat and power for granted and I do.

[Bubbler86]

5 hours ago, MAG5035 said:

It looks like we're going to come up dry this week on our best looking nearer term window for anything with respect to the teleconnections, which seems to be approx Mar 4-7. This is where we see the PNA briefly neutralize and the NAO/AO fairly negative. However, the deep 500mb low retro-ing underneath the NAO block to about eastern most Quebec/Labrador and the mean 500mb ridge pressing into the central US puts us on the back end of the trough, which will stuff the progged wave around Mar 6th way south through the SE US and out. The result for us looks like a chilly but relatively quiet week this week before presumably some moderation next week as we flip the NAO/AO positive and PNA negative again. 

As was just posted above with the MJO, we could have a run through phase 2-3 eventually later this month. FMA temp anomalies have a pretty strong correlation to NE/Great Lakes cold in those two phases, so if that were to come to fruition we could conceivably see a favorable period materialize 2nd half of the month.. especially with seasonal shortening of wavelengths and amplification. Im generally ready for warmer spring-like weather after about March 15th or so unless it's a go big or go home situation, so I'd hope we can see a late March/early April 2018 type deal if it's going to be colder than average and unsettled the back half of the month. Either way, I don't really see any real northeastern spring fling breakouts right now. 

18 degrees here this AM

[Bubbler86]

10 hours ago, TimB84 said:

From a PIT person, the GFS and Euro spent a lot of time teasing us with temps in the double digits below zero range on various days for the second and third week of February, sometimes as low as -19, usually about a week out, and were often in agreement on such barely-precedented cold. The lowest temperature we recorded in February was +2, and on many of those days our lows were closer to 20.

Yea, I am not counting on any specific temps but the auspice of some records was interesting to me though the data I was looking at was not correct so no records forthcoming this week.  Still a nice slap to the Mid Atlantic winters over crew.

[pawatch]

Wow the wind was pretty relentless here last night. 49 mph gust. 35 mph wind speeds.

Blew my hot tub cover off and I had 2 corners latched. Never had that happen before. No big trees around the house.

 

[anotherman]

Larry Cosgrove:

The luck of the Irish may just run out by St. Patrick's Day.

I am sure that many of you have heard about the spike of warmer temperatures in much of North America in the 6-10 day period. But there are some concerns once we get into the mid-point of the month. We still have the same basic players in the pattern set this winter. An energetic storm sequence across the northern Pacific Basin. Persistent heat ridging over the Strait of Yucatan. And an ever-present and vigorous subtropical jet stream running from below Hawaii into the Deep South.

Initially, the disturbances moving through California into Texas and then Georgia will be of small size, though occasionally associated with moderate/heavy precipitation during the course of the next seven days. One of the impulses will blow up well off of the East Coast, preventing the warmer air from reaching most of the Interstate 95 corridor until March 8-9.

However, a particularly large system near the Aleutian Islands will dive into the American Southwest, accompanied by an Alaska/Yukon cold intrusion. Unlike its predecessors, this cyclone will enforce a change in the overall 500MB configuration. Around and after March 17, with a surface low moving from the lower High Plains to the St. Lawrence Valley. A colder transition will follow.

[Bubbler86]

13 minutes ago, anotherman said:

Larry Cosgrove:

The luck of the Irish may just run out by St. Patrick's Day.

I am sure that many of you have heard about the spike of warmer temperatures in much of North America in the 6-10 day period. But there are some concerns once we get into the mid-point of the month. We still have the same basic players in the pattern set this winter. An energetic storm sequence across the northern Pacific Basin. Persistent heat ridging over the Strait of Yucatan. And an ever-present and vigorous subtropical jet stream running from below Hawaii into the Deep South.

Initially, the disturbances moving through California into Texas and then Georgia will be of small size, though occasionally associated with moderate/heavy precipitation during the course of the next seven days. One of the impulses will blow up well off of the East Coast, preventing the warmer air from reaching most of the Interstate 95 corridor until March 8-9.

However, a particularly large system near the Aleutian Islands will dive into the American Southwest, accompanied by an Alaska/Yukon cold intrusion. Unlike its predecessors, this cyclone will enforce a change in the overall 500MB configuration. Around and after March 17, with a surface low moving from the lower High Plains to the St. Lawrence Valley. A colder transition will follow.

Larry was too gung ho on early March but I think the general theme is how many others see it in no major warm ups. 

[Mount Joy Snowman]

8 hours ago, canderson said:

Nope - I’ll go hung tomorrow. It might be in the river honestly. 

Pretty sure I just hit 52 mph. My anemometer is cheap but pretty accurate. 

Wow that's impressive for an at-home wind reading.  I took my anemometer down about a year ago because I just didn't have a good spot for it and would only record readings that were like half of reality.

 

8 hours ago, CarlislePaWx said:

MDT's coldest temperature ever recorded in its history going back to 1888 was -22F on Jan 21, 1994.  Many locations in northern NJ saw temps of -25 to -30 with -32F degrees recorded from Hainesville, in Sussex County, the coldest temp in the state on that day.  I remember the day so well because my business partner and I were visiting the Weather Channel on that very day to discuss providing them access to our private meso-net that we founded during the early to mid 90's throughout NJ.  My station in Morris County only dropped to -8F but my partner's in Sparta (again Sussex County, northwestern most county in the state) dropped to -28F.  And, as excited as we were to spend the entire day there, we both were bummed that we were missing out on personally witnessing some of the coldest readings ever recorded in NJ climate history.  I'm pretty sure the all-time coldest minimum temp ever recorded was from Passaic or Bergen County with -36F in 1934.  Meanwhile, at TWC headquarters, located in Smyrna, a northern suburb of Atlanta, I shot video throughout the day there.  Any of you aged mid 40s and older (now), probably remembers some of the all-time favorites from the best years in their history (in my opinion) which ran from around 1985 to 2000.  I spent several hours with Jim Cantore as he showed us around the studios and their weather center.  He was rather young back in 1994 and had a full head of hair!  Others in my video included Declan Cannon, RIch Johnson, Dennis Smith, Vivian Brown, Jeanetta Jones, Coleen Wine, Mark Mancuso and several other greats whose names escape me at the moment.  Their lead forecaster at that time was Stu Ostro who started with them from day 1 back in August of 1982 and was still with them as recently as a few years ago.  I could go on and on but my post is already a bit long.  I just enjoy reminiscing about weather extremes from the past.

Good stuff Carlisle!  Ah yes 'ol Stu Ostro, isn't he one of the godfathers of winter storms and hurricanes?

 

8 hours ago, MAG5035 said:

It looks like we're going to come up dry this week on our best looking nearer term window for anything with respect to the teleconnections, which seems to be approx Mar 4-7. This is where we see the PNA briefly neutralize and the NAO/AO fairly negative. However, the deep 500mb low retro-ing underneath the NAO block to about eastern most Quebec/Labrador and the mean 500mb ridge pressing into the central US puts us on the back end of the trough, which will stuff the progged wave around Mar 6th way south through the SE US and out. The result for us looks like a chilly but relatively quiet week this week before presumably some moderation next week as we flip the NAO/AO positive and PNA negative again. 

As was just posted above with the MJO, we could have a run through phase 2-3 eventually later this month. FMA temp anomalies have a pretty strong correlation to NE/Great Lakes cold in those two phases, so if that were to come to fruition we could conceivably see a favorable period materialize 2nd half of the month.. especially with seasonal shortening of wavelengths and amplification. Im generally ready for warmer spring-like weather after about March 15th or so unless it's a go big or go home situation, so I'd hope we can see a late March/early April 2018 type deal if it's going to be colder than average and unsettled the back half of the month. Either way, I don't really see any real northeastern spring fling breakouts right now. 

It's backdoor cold front season!

[paweather]

[Itstrainingtime]

2 minutes ago, paweather said:

Ugh...don't remind me. I'm counting down to the summer solstice and descent towards early sunsets. 

[paweather]

1 minute ago, Itstrainingtime said:

Ugh...don't remind me. I'm counting down to the summer solstice and descent towards early sunsets. 

I know right? My goodness it seems like yesterday we turned the clocks back. 

[Itstrainingtime]

9 hours ago, CarlislePaWx said:

MDT's coldest temperature ever recorded in its history going back to 1888 was -22F on Jan 21, 1994.  Many locations in northern NJ saw temps of -25 to -30 with -32F degrees recorded from Hainesville, in Sussex County, the coldest temp in the state on that day.  I remember the day so well because my business partner and I were visiting the Weather Channel on that very day to discuss providing them access to our private meso-net that we founded during the early to mid 90's throughout NJ.  My station in Morris County only dropped to -8F but my partner's in Sparta (again Sussex County, northwestern most county in the state) dropped to -28F.  And, as excited as we were to spend the entire day there, we both were bummed that we were missing out on personally witnessing some of the coldest readings ever recorded in NJ climate history.  I'm pretty sure the all-time coldest minimum temp ever recorded was from Passaic or Bergen County with -36F in 1934.  Meanwhile, at TWC headquarters, located in Smyrna, a northern suburb of Atlanta, I shot video throughout the day there.  Any of you aged mid 40s and older (now), probably remembers some of the all-time favorites from the best years in their history (in my opinion) which ran from around 1985 to 2000.  I spent several hours with Jim Cantore as he showed us around the studios and their weather center.  He was rather young back in 1994 and had a full head of hair!  Others in my video included Declan Cannon, RIch Johnson, Dennis Smith, Vivian Brown, Jeanetta Jones, Coleen Wine, Mark Mancuso and several other greats whose names escape me at the moment.  Their lead forecaster at that time was Stu Ostro who started with them from day 1 back in August of 1982 and was still with them as recently as a few years ago.  I could go on and on but my post is already a bit long.  I just enjoy reminiscing about weather extremes from the past.

Thank you for sharing this. January 21st 1994 was the coldest temperature I've ever recorded...-23 was my low. I remember how jaw-dropping it was to see my thermometer that low...the coldest temp that I remembered prior to that was Christmas 1983 when I recorded -6. 

[CarlislePaWx]

47 minutes ago, Mount Joy Snowman said:

Good stuff Carlisle!  Ah yes 'ol Stu Ostro, isn't he one of the godfathers of winter storms and hurricanes?

I'm not so sure about that.  If he was, I don't remember hearing about that.  When I think of the potential candidates for winter and summer storms at The Weather Channel I think of John Hope for hurricanes and Paul Kocin for winter.