Central PA - Summer 2021

[Bubbler86]

About one week ago we were talking about what it would take to get this thread to 200 pages before Met summer ended. 

[Bubbler86]

GFS threatens a day or two near 90 in Mid Sept.  Fantasyland though. 

 

[Jns2183]

GFS threatens a day or two near 90 in Mid Sept.  Fantasyland though. 

 

How long will the boring stretch last?


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[Bubbler86]

6 minutes ago, Jns2183 said:

How long will the boring stretch last?


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CFS long it appears.  If the GFS is close to right, the forecasts for tropical storms interacting with the mainland US may need adjusted down.   Going to be a great Labor day weekend though. 

[TimB]

[sauss06]

18 hours ago, canderson said:

Hey @sauss06 - you hearing of trees staring to fall over? Hershey and Middletown are out of power and I'm curious if that's why. 

Finally able to get back to posting. I left work at 245 to go home to staff the FD. So yes, we had trees down all over, as well as the normal issues with storms.

14 hours ago, Blizzard of 93 said:

The wind has really picked up recently here.

The wind picked up pretty good around 3 pm. I was awake most of the night, the wind varied in intensity until about 230am when it finally calmed down. I'm not sure what the gust mph was, but around 4 pm, for 20-30 minutes it was crazy. the rain actually looked like it was spinning. It ripped the halyards off our huge flag. we had to go out to pick up our flags. That's about when our call volume increased too. 

11 hours ago, TheDreamTraveler said:

Apparently the huge tornado in Jersey might have been an EF4. I was reading that it might be the most powerful tornado to ever spawn from a tropical cyclone ever. Also would be NJ's most powerful tornado ever

 

Some of the houses are chopped in half and missing

 

 

My asst. chief is on PATF-1. he had been deployed south but they were released and were driving north yesterday through that rain. I'm not exactly sure where they ended up, but were rerouted to philly/NJ/Ny area. 

It never stopped raining at home until about 10pm. Though from 8-10 it was not heavy.

as of 6pm we had just over 6". i'm waiting for my neighbor to get me his final tally. gotta be close to 7"

[Bubbler86]

19 minutes ago, TimB84 said:

 

Once out of Met summer they had no more gumption to keep up the game. 

[Mount Joy Snowman]

So, it looks like the Conestoga River at Lancaster will hit its third highest crest ever, behind only Agnes and Lee.  The Swatara will likely just miss out on a top five showing.  The Schuylkill River at Philadelphia will have its second highest crest ever, behind only October 4, 1869, as we all remember so well.

[TimB]

3 minutes ago, Bubbler86 said:

Once out of Met summer then had no more gumption to keep up the game. 

Several comments here.

1. it’s 3 days short of a record.

2. this is the first time in recorded history that MDT made it through July and August without dropping below 60.

3. Five of the top ten have been in the last 6 years.

[Jns2183]

Man are they having a moist time


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[Itstrainingtime]

Can 2 consecutive days be any different weather wise? 

[Itstrainingtime]

Also - I actually added a wee bit of water to my previously reported tally last evening. Final total was 7.13" here in the historic district. 

[Superstorm]

Impressive


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[Itstrainingtime]

1 minute ago, Superstorm said:

Impressive


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I think the rainfall was pretty well predicted overall - to me, a bit of a surprise was the apparent strength of some of the tornadic activity. Some very sad images coming out of neighboring states, particularly from New Jersey. 

[Superstorm]

I think the rainfall was pretty well predicted overall - to me, a bit of a surprise was the apparent strength of some of the tornadic activity. Some very sad images coming out of neighboring states, particularly from New Jersey. 

I didn’t think we would see that type of tornado damage.


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[Bubbler86]

5 minutes ago, Itstrainingtime said:

I think the rainfall was pretty well predicted overall - to me, a bit of a surprise was the apparent strength of some of the tornadic activity. Some very sad images coming out of neighboring states, particularly from New Jersey. 

I saw on TWC, as I was dozing off last night, Ida was still at 999MB at 10PM. 

[Itstrainingtime]

1 minute ago, Bubbler86 said:

I saw on TWC, as I was dozing off last night, Ida was still at 999MB at 10PM. 

I was impressed with the winds here during the late afternoon and evening hours - the rain was blowing sideways in sheets. That surprised me too. 

[canderson]

7 minutes ago, Itstrainingtime said:

I think the rainfall was pretty well predicted overall - to me, a bit of a surprise was the apparent strength of some of the tornadic activity. Some very sad images coming out of neighboring states, particularly from New Jersey. 

There's long been a theory that ex-tropical systems once inland can't produce monster tornadoes, but rather spinups (EF 0, mayyyybe a 1). 

That NJ tornado looks like an EF 4 to me. 

[Itstrainingtime]

1 minute ago, canderson said:

There's long been a theory that ex-tropical systems once inland can't produce monster tornadoes, but rather spinups (EF 0, mayyyybe a 1). 

That NJ tornado looks like an EF 4 to me. 

Well that's exactly what I had been reading about the past few days - the likelihood of spinners was there, but that they would be weak, short-lived, and not pose a significant threat to personal property. That NJ tornado was a bonafide monster. 

[Bubbler86]

36 minutes ago, TimB84 said:

Several comments here.

1. it’s 3 days short of a record.

2. this is the first time in recorded history that MDT made it through July and August without dropping below 60.

3. Five of the top ten have been in the last 6 years.

All good climate change fodder.  7 of the top ten in the 2000's along with the 5 in the last 6 years.  You can also probably write off the 1901 one as statistical anomaly. 

[METALSTORM]

Just now, canderson said:

There's long been a theory that ex-tropical systems once inland can't produce monster tornadoes, but rather spinups (EF 0, mayyyybe a 1). 

That NJ tornado looks like an EF 4 to me. 

When these storms are hurricanes and they are just making landfall the tornados produced are usually weaker. Low end EF2 or lower. When they move inland, weaken to a sloppy low pressure area while transporting deep tropical moisture, and begin interacting with fronts and encountering wind shear is when deeper convection begins to develop and becomes supercellular in nature. Last night was a very good example of that. Stronger, long track tornados associated with severe thunderstorms, torrential rain, a lot of lightning with the stronger storms. The really odd thing of course was location. Eastern PA, NJ, NYC and LI, CT, and Cape Cod. Very rare event obviously.

[Porsche]

Here's why 222 is closed in both directions.

[Mount Joy Snowman]

19 minutes ago, canderson said:

There's long been a theory that ex-tropical systems once inland can't produce monster tornadoes, but rather spinups (EF 0, mayyyybe a 1). 

That NJ tornado looks like an EF 4 to me. 

 

16 minutes ago, Itstrainingtime said:

Well that's exactly what I had been reading about the past few days - the likelihood of spinners was there, but that they would be weak, short-lived, and not pose a significant threat to personal property. That NJ tornado was a bonafide monster. 

It is indeed an extreme rarity to have strong tornadoes associated with a tropical system.  I was reading (but forget where ugh) that if this NJ one is confirmed as an EF4 it would be only the second (maybe first??) ever in recorded US history to be spawned from a tropical storm inland.  Something to that effect.  They are almost always of the short-lived weak rain-wrapped variety.

Edit:  Also, I should add I believe it would be tied for the strongest confirmed tornado in NJ history.

[pasnownut]

54 minutes ago, TimB84 said:

3. Five of the top ten have been in the last 6 years.

This is the one that sticks out to me...

[TimB]

7 minutes ago, Bubbler86 said:

All good climate change fodder.  7 of the top ten in the 2000's along with the 5 in the last 6 years.  You can also probably write off the 1901 one as statistical anomaly. 

But then you contrast it with Pittsburgh, and it seems to be the same as most other weather stats here. 8 of our top 10 occurred in the pre-Pittsburgh International era. The longest streak was 70 (1949) with no others above 46. If you limit it to stats observed at PIT (dates back to 1948) the 28 days ending August 31 is #5, just ahead of the streaks in 1988, 2012, and 2020, but falling short of 1995 and 2011 (all of the well-known recent hot summers except 2016). 

[pasnownut]

27 minutes ago, Superstorm said:

I didn’t think we would see that type of tornado damage.


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but in fariness, I didnt think they would either....

[Jns2183]

There's long been a theory that ex-tropical systems once inland can't produce monster tornadoes, but rather spinups (EF 0, mayyyybe a 1). 
That NJ tornado looks like an EF 4 to me. 

Maybe on its on but you had ida interacting with a strong frontal boundary with a high thermal gradient that created conditions where she was deepening just as she hit the mid Atlantic


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[TheDreamTraveler]

2 hours ago, pasnownut said:

and thats a wrap to met summer.  Some data for you all to chew on.

Here are some rainfall records from Ida:

New Daily Rainfall Records for September 1st:
Harrisburg (MDT): 6.64"Previous: 3.60" in 1952
Altoona (AOO):5.21" Previous: 1.15" in 1952
Johnstown (JST): 3.29"Previous: 0.95" in 1916
Note: Records in 1952 occurred thanks to the remnants of
Hurricane Able.

Maximum 1-Day Total Precipitation at Harrisburg:
1. 9.13 1972-06-22
2. 7.71 2011-09-07
3. 6.64 2021-09-01***
4. 5.81 1972-06-21
5. 5.72 2013-10-11

Maximum 1-Day Total Precipitation at Altoona:
1. 5.55 2004-09-08
2. 5.28 2004-09-17
3. 5.21 2021-09-01***
4. 5.03 1997-11-07
5. 4.53 1967-09-28

Prelim rankings for August and Summer 2021 (JJA):
Harrisburg: 2nd warmest August; 4th warmest summer
Williamsport: 3rd warmest August; 9th warmest summer

Harrisburg average temperature (JJA)
1. 2020 77.9F
2. 1966 77.6F
3. 2016 77.3F
4. 2021 77.1F***
5. 2010 76.9F

Harrisburg average minimum temperature (JJA)
1. 2020 68.2F
2. 2021 68.1F***
3. 2016 67.9F
4. 2010 67.6F
5. 2005 67.3F

Harrisburg average maximum temperature (JJA)
1.  1966      90.2F
2.  1999      87.7F
3.  2020/1991 87.6F
5.  1943      86.8F
6.  2016      86.7F
7.  1988/1944 86.5F
9.  2002      86.2F
10. 2021      86.1F***

Harrisburg average temperature (Aug)
1. 2016 79.1F
2. 2021 78.3F***

Williamsport average temperature (JJA)
1.  2020/2016 74.4F
3.  1949/1901 74.3F
5.  1900      74.2F
6.  1995/1955 74.0F
8.  2005      73.9F
9.  2021      73.7F***
10. 1991      73.6F

Williamsport average minimum temperature (JJA)
1. 1901      66.2F
2. 1899      64.0F
3. 2005/2021 63.1F***
5. 2016      62.8F

Williamsport average temperature (Aug)
1. 2016 76.1F
2. 1995 75.9F
3. 2021 75.6F***

I was complaining how I haven't been able to open the windows much the past month...well now it makes sense. I knew it was hot every night but didn't know it was the 2nd warmest. Thankfully its supposed to be really cool tonight

[Bubbler86]

33 minutes ago, TimB84 said:

But then you contrast it with Pittsburgh, and it seems to be the same as most other weather stats here. 8 of our top 10 occurred in the pre-Pittsburgh International era. The longest streak was 70 (1949) with no others above 46. If you limit it to stats observed at PIT (dates back to 1948) the 28 days ending August 31 is #5, just ahead of the streaks in 1988, 2012, and 2020, but falling short of 1995 and 2011 (all of the well-known recent hot summers except 2016). 

I think you guys have more of a station issue than we do but I guess you can turn this around and look at it another way.  Comparing where each station falls in the top ten of hottest, are any recent years in the top ten of coldest? 

[Bubbler86]

Rumor going around that there is a pic of Cam Newton in Pittsburgh.