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E PA/NJ/DE Fall 2024 Obs/Discussion


Rtd208
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As has been the case many times this month...many locations below 500 feet ASL saw freezing temperatures this morning. While most spots above 550 feet fell to no lower than the mid to upper 30's. The lowest temp I found was the 26.7 at Warwick and the warmest was 44.5 at West Grove. Today begins a warming trend that will take us through Halloween. We should peak in the upper 70's on Thursday before falling back to closer to normal levels to start November.

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17 hours ago, JTA66 said:

If by once in a 1,000 year winter you mean one of the warmest winters, then sure, I like our odds.

I imagine Thursday evening I’ll be yelling at the trick or treaters lingering at the door that I’m not paying to air condition the outside! :oldman:

I wouldn't be surprised if we had one of the warmest winters on record. Our last 2 droughts, in late 1998 and 2001-02, produced 2 very warm winters, especially 01-02. That was a wall-to-wall torch winter, bookended with 80s in late October and mid-90s in mid-April, with all winter months (December, January, February, and March) recording at least one 70+ high.

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11 hours ago, Albedoman said:

I have been calling for this severe drought since June. No longer a laughing matter right guys?   Once the limestone streams go dry, all hell will break loose with PADEP. I awaiting PA Fish Commission to be discussing the fish loss in uppper reaches of the main trout streams  real soon in the media.  Just about every municipality in the LV has declared a burn ban and the LV is even in listed in the fire watch areas for the entire nation. I promise you that tons of landscapers and residents will be watering later this week when the temps are in the 80's agin, sucking down those groundwater levels big time and drying up base flows in the smaller streams. Tons of landscaping trees, bushes and new lawns are being established right now only by irrigation. Golf courses are being watered big time too since the sunny warm weather is giving them tons of customers. Car wash businesses are booming after a brief sprinkle in the past week as the cars are so dirty from the pollen and dust that has turned to concrete on the cars surface from the sprinkles.

I still believe the extreme drought pattern will break by mid November and we should get some moderate rainfall events. I do expect a nice winter storm around Thanksgiving of a few inches of snow as this is typical of this weather pattern.

By the way, the first rainfall event of over .25 in with even a moderate breeze will bring down the leaves all at one time. The leaf piles will be huge this year.

By the way, at 3 pm today, the dewpoint was 20 degrees- just unreal how dry the air is and how the forest floors are literally at tinderbox right now.

DEP says things are in good shape statewide.

County_Drought_Status_Map_3-25-24.jpg

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5 hours ago, TheClimateChanger said:

DEP says things are in good shape statewide.

County_Drought_Status_Map_3-25-24.jpg

This map is not well thought out. Chester county has enacted a burn ban. Forest fire sign at French creek was moved to moderate last Tuesday or Thursday. We have to get some rain soon otherwise the drought will likely be protracted over the winter. 

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16 hours ago, Albedoman said:

I have been calling for this severe drought since June. No longer a laughing matter right guys?   Once the limestone streams go dry, all hell will break loose with PADEP. I awaiting PA Fish Commission to be discussing the fish loss in uppper reaches of the main trout streams  real soon in the media.  Just about every municipality in the LV has declared a burn ban and the LV is even in listed in the fire watch areas for the entire nation. I promise you that tons of landscapers and residents will be watering later this week when the temps are in the 80's agin, sucking down those groundwater levels big time and drying up base flows in the smaller streams. Tons of landscaping trees, bushes and new lawns are being established right now only by irrigation. Golf courses are being watered big time too since the sunny warm weather is giving them tons of customers. Car wash businesses are booming after a brief sprinkle in the past week as the cars are so dirty from the pollen and dust that has turned to concrete on the cars surface from the sprinkles.

I still believe the extreme drought pattern will break by mid November and we should get some moderate rainfall events. I do expect a nice winter storm around Thanksgiving of a few inches of snow as this is typical of this weather pattern.

By the way, the first rainfall event of over .25 in with even a moderate breeze will bring down the leaves all at one time. The leaf piles will be huge this year.

By the way, at 3 pm today, the dewpoint was 20 degrees- just unreal how dry the air is and how the forest floors are literally at tinderbox right now.

You've been calling for a drought since you joined the forum- but yes it is a serious condition at this point. You were bound to be right sooner or later. We also enjoy busting your stones for it. 

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3 hours ago, zenmsav6810 said:

You've been calling for a drought since you joined the forum- but yes it is a serious condition at this point. You were bound to be right sooner or later. We also enjoy busting your stones for it. 

I have been in this  forum since the 1990s under various names. The busting on me for the drought has only been in the last few years as we have unusual  patterns with weather  extremes from 2019  to right now. Yea keep the busting going guys as this old fart is loving the challenges and comments. Drowning  one month dry as hell the next two months. Little snow last year (except at my house 35 inches highest in the state) to tons of snow like in 2020 with 30+ inches in a single snow event. This drought however  I could see a mile a way with the same la nina dying pattern as the early 2000's. At this point all my thoughts are not with the current drought situation even though it is really severe but what will happen in Dec -Feb of 2025. The last drought like this was destroyed by real nice Noreaster events as in the video below

 

 

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1 hour ago, Albedoman said:

I have been in this  forum since the 1990s under various names. The busting on me for the drought has only been in the last few years as we have unusual  patterns with weather  extremes from 2019  to right now. Yea keep the busting going guys as this old fart is loving the challenges and comments. Drowning  one month dry as hell the next two months. Little snow last year (except at my house 35 inches highest in the state) to tons of snow like in 2020 with 30+ inches in a single snow event. This drought however  I could see a mile a way with the same la nina dying pattern as the early 2000's. At this point all my thoughts are not with the current drought situation even though it is really severe but what will happen in Dec -Feb of 2025. The last drought like this was destroyed by real nice Noreaster events as in the video below

 

 

02-03 was a Niño

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12 hours ago, Albedoman said:

I have been in this  forum since the 1990s under various names. The busting on me for the drought has only been in the last few years as we have unusual  patterns with weather  extremes from 2019  to right now. Yea keep the busting going guys as this old fart is loving the challenges and comments. Drowning  one month dry as hell the next two months. Little snow last year (except at my house 35 inches highest in the state) to tons of snow like in 2020 with 30+ inches in a single snow event. This drought however  I could see a mile a way with the same la nina dying pattern as the early 2000's. At this point all my thoughts are not with the current drought situation even though it is really severe but what will happen in Dec -Feb of 2025. The last drought like this was destroyed by real nice Noreaster events as in the video below

 

 

Only problem is that the la nina died in 2001, and by this point in 2002, we were heading towards a solid moderate el nino and the pattern was changing. We don't have anything close to that right now. If anything, we are much closer to the conditions of 2001-02, which was a very warm and snowless winter. This drought is likely going on for a while. Best hope is that we get a 2020-21 type winter, and then a tropical rainstorm in the summer. That's how we broke the 1998-99 drought.

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Our warming trend will continue and peak on Halloween with a high well into the 70's with an 80-degree reading possible in valley locations. While it will be warm it will not be as warm as those Trick or Treat days of 1945 / 1946 / 1950 and 2016. Some models still hint at some rain on Thursday night. If we do get rain we will not set a streak for longest stretch without rain. We will be behind both 1924 and 1963. We would need to get through Sunday to set a new record of 35 days rain free. We turn a bit cooler and closer to early November temperatures by the weekend.

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17 hours ago, zenmsav6810 said:

You've been calling for a drought since you joined the forum- but yes it is a serious condition at this point. You were bound to be right sooner or later. We also enjoy busting your stones for it. 

To be fair, we were way overdue for a drought. We haven't had one since 2001-02. Heck, we haven't even come close to having drought conditions late October 2007, and a rainstorm saved us from one.

I'd argue that the drought itself isn't the one-in-1000-year event, but rather the 22-year gap in between droughts is. I bet if you go back in records, there probably isn't even a gap of 10 years without a drought before this.

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1 hour ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

To be fair, we were way overdue for a drought. We haven't had one since 2001-02. Heck, we haven't even come close to having drought conditions late October 2007, and a rainstorm saved us from one.

I'd argue that the drought itself isn't the one-in-1000-year event, but rather the 22-year gap in between droughts is. I bet if you go back in records, there probably isn't even a gap of 10 years without a drought before this.

 I too want to be fair as well. I am not just some guy who likes to post crap.  see below link We have had many historic droughts since the early 1960's in the Lehigh Valley. In fact, these droughts  were so severe in the late 60's that the USGS did a water supply study called the "wood study" that was infamous in PA. I have that study and moderate droughts are a usually on a 5-10 year event for us. Droughts have been more noticable the last decade because the LV population and water consumption demand is up big time since the 1990's. Furthermore, more water/soda/ even beer bottling companies are now located in the LV than anywhere else in the country. The quality of the water speaks for itself as many of you drink Deer Park, Niagra, Pierre, Dasani etc which is bottled from the same groundwater/ Little Lehigh Creek source as my house in the Breinigsville/Fogelsville area. Bottled water is a huge business in the LV and many of the spring water sources are along the Blue Mt range and from limestone rivers/wells located in the LCA area of the LV .  I am a certified and professional hydrologist from the Natural Resource Conservation Service.  This current drought is not a 1000 year event. Actually this drought thus far is more like a 50-100 year event. However, I have cried drought the past six months because in 2017, the Little Lehigh went dry in the drought  and  I have now seen the similar weather patterns in 2002, 2017 and now in 2024. 

Even though many think snow will non existent this year, I fully disagree.  All it takes is one good low pressure setup.  This stubborn high pressure will eventually break down and when it does, off to the races with lows coming from the GOM. If I have to say anything, we  have had complete unreliability with weather patterns from the ENSO which  has been in a disaray ever since 2018.  Back to back La Nina patterns, no true netral year and piss poor El Nino setup have sent LR forecasting in chaos. We simply need to have the low pressures forming in the 4 corners area and along the gulf of Mexico again.  Throw in a bunch  a bunch of polar arctic fronts and Alberta clipppers and boom- a normal winter again.  https://www.lehighcountyauthority.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/LCA-WeeklyReport-DroughtMonitoring-Dashboard-101624.pdf

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I think you meant to say 2007, not 2017. There was no drought near us in 2017. That was a wet late spring and summer, especially May, July, and August. Not to mention, the winter that followed had a considerable amount of snow early and late (surrounded by outlier near-record warm February). There might have been a drought in fall 2007, as September and most of October was dry (until the rainstorm on the 24th-27th).

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4 hours ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

I think you meant to say 2007, not 2017. There was no drought near us in 2017. That was a wet late spring and summer, especially May, July, and August. Not to mention, the winter that followed had a considerable amount of snow early and late (surrounded by outlier near-record warm February). There might have been a drought in fall 2007, as September and most of October was dry (until the rainstorm on the 24th-27th).

https://www.lehighcountyauthority.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/LCA-WeeklyReport-DroughtMonitoring-Dashboard-101624.pdf

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On 10/28/2024 at 9:02 AM, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

I wouldn't be surprised if we had one of the warmest winters on record. Our last 2 droughts, in late 1998 and 2001-02, produced 2 very warm winters, especially 01-02. That was a wall-to-wall torch winter, bookended with 80s in late October and mid-90s in mid-April, with all winter months (December, January, February, and March) recording at least one 70+ high.

I don’t mean for this to be snarky but calling for one of the warmest winters on record isn’t exactly going out on a limb considering we’ve seen 8 of the top 10 warmest winters in Philadelphia since 2010 and 6 of the top 10 warmest in the last 10 years and this year sure as hell doesn’t look like a 13-14 so ya most likely it’ll be a warm winter, they all are these days. Now dry, that would be unusual…

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14 hours ago, Albedoman said:

So it was fall 2016 into 2017, which would be another el nino -> la nina swing, like 1998-99 and 2007 (possibly this year if we get a la nina). Droughts tend to happen in years when we go from strong el nino -> la nina or el nino -> strong la nina. 1998, when we had the widespread drought, was one of the strongest swings from a super el nino -> strong la nina.

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We will see an unseasonably warm end to the week before a cooler weekend... followed by a warmer week next week - then cooler again by next weekend. Unfortunately rain chances have dwindled with the frontal passage late on Halloween night. Therefore, the all-time consecutive days without rain run may indeed be broken for many... but not all climate stations across Chester County if we get through this Sunday without any precipitation.

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9 hours ago, LVblizzard said:

Models have been trending drier for Friday morning. Now it looks like our next legit chance of rain is Monday with some WAA action from a system in the midwest.

I’ll take anything at this point.

drizzle is better than nothing I guess. Like  I said on Sunday, the rain events will start showing up on the models by mid November and sure enough the 6Z GFS is showing some moderate rainafall events near the 11/15 time frame. However, many additional streams in eastern PA  will go dry before  drought warnings are actually issued in PA in the upcoming weeks.   Spoke to LCA officials last night at the public meeting in Lower Mac. They are really concerned about the drought situation now and are about to make a major announcement  in the next week or so to conserve water in the metro area of Lehigh County as the monitoring wells are dropping like a rock and the Little Lehigh is going dry like in 2017.

PADEP needs to wake up as the local municipal water authorities are bypassing the PADEP  idiotic criteria for issuing drought watches/warnings and the water authorities are doing it themselves by informing the public.   PADEP needs to stick to just enforcing the environmental regulations  and not forecasting weather/streambase flow  conditions. The experts like USGS should be issuing these drought watches/warnings, not a PADEP flunkies sitting behind a desk twiddling their thumbs

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Happy Halloween! Yet another warm beautiful day on the way with temperatures while not record warmth for trick or treaters it will still be well into the 70's with some low 80's in lower elevations. Cold front cross tomorrow morning with very slight chances of rain. Much chillier over the weekend with temperatures falling back to near normal levels to start November.

 

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