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Central PA Spring 2023


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13 hours ago, Mount Joy Snowman said:

Safe Harbor regulates the elevation of Lake Clarke at a pretty consistent 227’ so shouldn't be any issues down this way. For now at least. But yes I can imagine it’s getting rough up that way. 

We’re below a foot up here. A few places I’m running in about a foot of water. We have a dam,up above where I run that gives us a summer pool of water.

 

B484B772-756E-40E3-9FBC-76552D4C0309.png

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First off, I'd like to thank each of you who sent well wishes to me for our trip. It was so much appreciated and I consider many of you my extended met family. :) 

Second, I'd like to thank all of you who put up with months of my drivel of excitement over going to Mammoth Lakes. Yes, I'm a giant kid in a 57 year old body. It has been a dream of mine to go there for at least 10 years, and my excitement got the best of me. I'm sorry for my thread cluttering over the past several months.

The trip itself:

Traveling by train was amazing. There are a few caveats to that - I am a train buff. I love trains. And I don't mind the "nuances" of train travel. (delays, cramped quarters, hit or miss food offerings, etc.) My wife and I are not picky, we don't typically get excited when something goes wrong, when traveling we roll with what is going on. That's important when considering Amtrak. If you want seamless, guaranteed on-time experiences, look elsewhere. We had a roomette booked for 95% of our trip. It suited us just fine. We had room to sit and sleep in our private "cabin" and not much more than that. We spent a lot of time during the day enjoying the lounge car where we were able to stretch out more and relax. The entire experience was amazing because we knew exactly what we were getting in to. And we loved it. @Jns2183 - if you have a dream of taking a similar experience, do it! So long as you do your homework and understand the quirks of long-distance train travel, you'll have an amazing experience! 

The United States of America - my dear wife took exactly 3,341 pictures and 143 videos during our odyssey. It will take us months to work through it all. I shared a few peeks into our trip, perhaps in a few months I'll be able to share a separate thread with a picture/video montage. So many incredible sites - if we had one regret (and it really isn't a regret, it was a "it is what it is" kind of thing) was we might have wanted to wait a few more weeks before traveling. We began booking 2 years ago, and at that time we could not foresee the avalanche of snow out west. Many of the places that we wanted to see we could not because of road closures due to snow. The thing is...I wanted to go early enough to SEE snow but was hoping it would be confined to the higher peaks so that travel was pretty much open. Obviously, that was not the case in the far west. Over the last couple of months leading into our trip it became pretty obvious what was happening so again...expectations were adjusted. We traveled through parts of the following states: PA, Maryland, DC, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Montana, Nevada, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri. Keep in mind that some of those states, we disembarked our train, rented a car to visit certain areas, then got a later train to continue our trip. Our favorite state as far as beauty? Utah. Breathtaking. Stunning. Diverse. Utah was amazing. Most of the other states were as well in their own ways. 

Mammoth Lakes, California: It is an incredible place to visit. Key word in that sentence is "visit". LOL. It is NOT this guy's retirement community. Single homes often are in the 2-4 million range. Condos can be snagged for as "little" as about $750,000. It is one of California's ultimate playgrounds. There is so much more than snow and skiing in Mammoth - miles hiking and biking trails, fishing, camping - it is an outdoors mecca. And to live in the midst of it will cost more than this guy's salary and savings can muster. It is a true tourist town - mostly empty during the week, packed uncomfortably full on weekends. My wife and I tend to be very casual in nature and there were times where we felt almost "second class" there...some of the people we were around had a lot of money and weren't afraid to let others know it. Not our vibe at all. Minus that, the town is gorgeous. The mountains are majestic. When we arrived, there was about 8' of snow on the ground at our resort. Obviously, that was the most snow I've ever seen. I was hoping to see snow outside of town on the mountain but obviously was treated with a little more coverage. :) Even today, there is still about 15' up higher on the ski area. They will easily make it through July- you can buy lift tickets online through 7/31 currently. Funny thing, the lifts now stop running at 1pm each day. It's warm enough that the snow now gets so sticky that they shut down during peak heating. Interesting. 

It was truly a trip of a lifetime. Would i do something like that again? No. We do have other dreams that we're chasing...geez, there are so many incredible things out there to see. We were in Alaska 10 years ago and we're starting to get an itch to go back. We also enjoy warm locales and St. John in the US Virgin Islands is calling us back as well. The past few days have felt odd -  we literally were planning this trip for more than 5 years. We enjoyed every single moment of each day. And now that it's over? It feels...yeah, odd. Sort of empty. But also really glad to be home. We had the kids over on Monday and that was awesome. 

Now - can we please get some freaking rain around here?

Oh yeah, one more thing...currently sitting at 14 mows in Maytown. :)  

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Today marks the 38th anniversary of the great PA Tornado outbreak - 19, yes 19 confirmed tornados on 5/31/1985. I remember my old NOAA weather radio going off over and over and over again during the evening hours as the event unfolded. Worst of it was across northern, and especially NW PA. 

https://www.weather.gov/ctp/TornadoOutbreak_May311985

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On 5/29/2023 at 9:09 PM, Bubbler86 said:

Heree is why USGS has not pulled many triggers.   Groundwater in the green,  90 day precip yellow and surface water in the green (black line is current location on the graph).  The April deluge in mdt causing a bubble of results that appear ok for some longer term stats but several inches in quick order does little for the yards and vegetation which do not care about 90 day stats.

 

 

 

 

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NOAA predicted the drought in SE Pennsylvania would end this month, so they are going to make sure that it ends even if it was the driest month on record.

Map of projected changes in U.S. drought conditions in May 2023

U.S. climate outlook for May 2023 | NOAA Climate.gov

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4 minutes ago, Itstrainingtime said:

WPC's 7 day QPF looks a bit more promising than their outlook that @Jns2183 posted yesterday:

 

The GFS is a true delight for people that want some rain and well BN temps.   June would quickly be in a double-digit temp deficit despite Friday.    The ULL stays for over a week.    40's for lows every day next work week. 

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2 hours ago, Itstrainingtime said:

And a few miles NW of you, my low this morning was 52. (forecast low was 42)

That is shocking but as Bubbler mentioned there has been quite the east/west component to the cool air lately.  I saw a lot of places in Chester County yesterday topped out in the low 70s, whereas I hit 83.  I did notice there was the normal elevation-dependent nature with the inversion last night, with the top of the ridge being a good ten degrees warmer than some of the low-lying rural spots.  Obviously that doesn't factor in with you and I being at similar elevations, but yeah that east/west component must have really been something.

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Today marks the 38th anniversary of the great PA Tornado outbreak - 19, yes 19 confirmed tornados on 5/31/1985. I remember my old NOAA weather radio going off over and over and over again during the evening hours as the event unfolded. Worst of it was across northern, and especially NW PA. 
https://www.weather.gov/ctp/TornadoOutbreak_May311985
I was 2 1/2 then and living north of Pittsburgh. Apparently there are pictures somewhere of like 4 families, including mine in basement waiting it out. What's amazing besides the quantity was that almost all were f3 and above, and the average track length is off the charts compared to normal.

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

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