*sighhhhh*
I really look forward to the time when I can send you people a forecast that features no mention of the word "snow."
Unfortunately, I will have to keep waiting.
Here's what to expect:
Today will start sunny, but cloud up later in the afternoon ahead of a small disturbance. We could see a flurry or a couple of light snow showers late this afternoon into this evening. No accumulation. Breezy all day and night. High 29, low 8.
Before I talk about the snow, let me just say a few words about the road conditions that persist several days after the Nor'easter and a day after the nuisance snowfall. And those few words are: they are shitty. The main routes and highways tend to be just wet, but the secondary roads are snow-covered and slick in spots. And in the city, people are getting stuck all over the place, or just leaving their parked cars along the road, piled with snow and plowed in to the max, like silent winter weather totems. People who are trying to get their street-parked cars out are shoveling the snow into the street, which is one of my favorite things ever. Or parking at crazy angles. Winter driving in town is maddening and chaotic.
Like this.
Alright, so I just needed to share that - not only to vent, but to note that we've already got a shit-ton of snow, and the roads are compromised, so even a little bit of snow has the potential to hamper travel.
Monday will have clouds mixed with sun and a high of 30. Snow arrives by midnight (late Monday night) and continues throughout the early morning hours of Tuesday, tapering by about 9am and ending outright by noon. (We could see some lingering afternoon flurries, but this is a fast-moving storm with a limited amount of moisture, so it'll scoot through.)
Accumulations in the range of 2-4 inches.
Chance of delay Tuesday, 75%
Chance of cancellation Tuesday, 60%
High Tuesday 36, low 28.
Wednesday looks overcast and breezy with the chance of an early shower, but warmer: high 44, low 30.
Thursday is overcast again, and rain/drizzle/mist could fall at any time. Still mild: high 45, low 34.
Friday looks cloudy and breezy with a bit of early-morning rain or drizzle. High 51, low 32.
The weekend will be rainy and mild: highs in the mid 40s, lows in the low to mid 30s.
Next week (the week of Monday 2/24) begins colder with a chance of snow, but it's early yet, so let's just skip over that. Cold generally that week with highs in the 30s and lows in the 20s, but sunny most days.
And then the following weekend (the first two days of March) look positively balmy: highs in the 50s with soul-nourishing sunshine.
Stay tuned for updates!
P.S. If you haven't seen this video - and oldie but goodie, internet-wise - you've got to see it. Warning: there is A LOT of profanity in this video. A LOT.
An update on the February 18th storm - my current thinking as of 9pm Monday:
Snow begins about 2-3am Tuesday. Heaviest snow is 4am-8am. Snow tapers and ends by 10am.
I continue to believe that accumulations will be in the 2-4 inch range.
Getting above freezing by noon; high 37. Afternoon and evening will be windy with clearing skies.
Chance of delay Tuesday, 80%
Chance of cancellation Tuesday, 60%
There's a small chance we'll have some icing on Wednesday morning if the rain arrives before it warms up. But I think that's a relatively minor chance. Let's just move on.
40s on Wednesday and Thursday, 50s on Friday. Rainy on Wednesday and Friday. Friday may bring flooding with the rainfall and snowmelt, so awesome.
Colder thereafter. Highs in the 30s next week.
Here's the Doppler:
There's just so god damned much snow.
What a storm. A foot on Thursday morning, then a thundersnow-laden blizzard on the back end.
The numbers are staggering: 20.5" in Birdsboro, 18" in Mertztown, 20.3" in Bethlehem, 18.5" in Gouglersville, 19.5" in North Jersey, 20.2" in Honey Brook, 18.8" here in Reading. Most of the area fell between 12 and 18 inches of snow.
In meteorology (even among hobbyists), there is a tendency to overquantify. To get all number-nerdy and focus on the pressure readings, the temperature gradients, the snowfall totals, the QPF.
But--not to get too philosophical here--this storm is one that reminded me why I am so drawn to forecasting the weather. Numbers are important in forecasting (as in life), but there's the unquantifiable element: the power of nature to overwhelm, and to do so effortlessly.
In Lord of the Flies, a novel about boys stranded on an island, Ralph stares out to sea during a contemplative moment and is "faced by the brute obtuseness of the ocean." He's realizing (with a little "fall of the heart") that the water is going about its ebb and flow indifferently. In the same way, we scurry around trying to outsmart nature, to anticipate it, to control it, to defeat it. And nature rolls on, not to spite us, but with utter disregard of us.
Not sure why I'm in such a ruminative mood. Maybe it's just easier than worrying that the next snow-hunk that falls off our roof is going to be the one that breaks a window. Or that the next gust of wind is the one that dislodges a branch onto a power line. Or that the school year will never, ever, ever end.
There's another little storm coming tonight. I almost can't bring myself to tell you about it, but that's my "job," so here goes...
Yes, I censored the nipples. I thought it would be unfair of me to confront you with unwanted nipples when all you wanted to do was read my blog. You can't unsee things.Snow moves in for most of us about midnight or 1am (Friday/early Saturday). On and off, varying rates until about 1pm. Should only accumulate about 1-3 inches, but remember that it doesn't take much for the roads to become treacherous. I mean, after a foot and a half of snow, this seems like mere child's play. But today's 100-vehicle pileup on the PA Turnpike is a reminder that the key to driving in the snow (more than having a snow-savvy car) is slowing way down and keeping a generous following distance.
Backing things up a bit.
Today is getting up to 41 with plenty of sunshine, so the roads will get better and better as the day goes on.
And then the aforementioned nuisance snow.
Cold over the weekend: high of 28 Saturday and 22 on Sunday. Low of 15 over Saturday to Sunday; 5 overnight Sunday to Monday.
And then some snow/mixed precipitation moves in for Monday night into Tuesday, so stay tuned for updates on that.
And then it gets warmer by the end of next week! I promise it does.
Get More: Comedy Central,Funny Videos,Funny TV Shows
This son of a bitching storm.
My snow-weary readers,
I wish I could tell you that this storm has changed its track dramatically and now it will be just a flurry or a wisp of drizzle. I wish I could tell you that we won't have 30mph winds and heavy, wet snow that will bring down trees and power lines. I wish I could tell you that we won't get 12-16 inches of wind-driven, crippling snow. And I really wish I could tell you that there's not another storm looming for Monday into Tuesday that promises snow, sleet, and freezing rain.
I wish.
David Hasselhoff takes his pants off.The first flakes will start falling by midnight Wednesday, but it won't really get cranked up until 2 or 3am. Then it snows heavily for the next 14 hours. And the wind speed increases during that time. Tapering begins by about 7pm Thursday, then ends by 1 or 2am late Thursday night/Friday morning. There could be a bit of mixing (especially points south and east of Berks), but this is primarily a wet snow event. Windy and nasty.
Snow totals:
Berks, Lancaster, Allentown, Poconos, extreme North Jersey, 12-16 inches, all snow.
Philadelphia's suburbs, 10-14 inches, maybe a little bit of mixing.
Philadelphia, central Jersey, NYC, 8-12 inches, some mixing in the afternoon.
South Jersey and Delaware, 4-8 inches generally, with plenty of mixing.
Watch for beach erosion and high winds (and waves and all that) along the NJ and Delaware coasts.
Schools:
Chance of delay Thursday, 20%
Chance of cancellation Thursday, 99.6%
Chance of delay Friday, 92%
Chance of cancellation Friday, 70%
Temperatures remain steady in the upper 20s/low 30s throughout the storm.
Trivia: The Weather Channel has named this Winter Storm Pax, which is Latin for peace, which no it's not peaceful. It's a vicious, crippling winter storm and Pax is a dumb name for any winter storm. Is my sputtering rage at The Weather Channel's alarmist buffoonery coming through?
Depressed again. Here's a video of an orangutan and a dog that are BFFs.
Stay tuned for updates.
Thursday update: major winter storm
Regarding Thursday's storm: there's still plenty of uncertainty in terms of track, precipitation type, and timing. But here's what I see...
Snow begins overnight Wednesday into Thursday (around 10pm Wednesday). Snow continues Thursday, varying in intensity. Thursday morning, Thursday afternoon, Thursday evening, Thursday night. Snow, snow, snow, snow. Snow ends by 3 or 4am Friday.
Amount - right now, it looks like we're in the bull's eye for 12-16 inches of snow. That could be less if precipitation type mixes or track changes. But right now I'm thinking:
Chance of delay Thursday, 25%
Chance of cancellation Thursday, 85%
Chance of delay Friday, 80%
Chance of cancellation Friday, 65%
Leading to that storm, we'll see some frigid-assed weather. Low tonight down to 10. Tuesday's high, 25; low all the way down to 4. Wednesday's high, 25 again; low, 12.
This is a really depressing forecast, so here's this:
Stay tuned for updates!
Are we going to have off tomorrow?
Snow day crew,
If I had a nickel for every time I've heard that already today, I'd have twenty-five cents. If I had a nickel for every time I'm going to hear that today, I'd have forty-five million dollars.
The math is solid. Don't hassle me.
For tonight's storm, this is my latest thinking:
Snow begins by 9 or 10pm tonight, falling lightly at first, then heavier after midnight. Snow will mix with sleet toward morning (say, 6am) but I still think this is going to be mostly a snow event. Even if the precipitation changes to rain (which it may, briefly), the rain will freeze on surfaces and make already-treacherous secondary roads impassable. If you try to walk, you will have an ass-meeting with the sidewalk.
Look at the lines. Isn't it pretty? Wind.Snowfall totals are being overblown by some media outlets, I think. Other outlets say 4-8" for Lancaster and the western suburbs of Philly, 6-10" for Berks, Allentown, Pottsville, some of North Jersey, and NYC, and 8-12" in northeastern Pennsylvania (Scranton and the Poconos and whatnot) as well as extreme North Jersey.
I think these amounts are a bit high. What I'd say is:
2-4 inches in Philly, South Jersey, Chester County, Lancaster County, with .4 inch ice accumulation
4-6 inches in Berks, Allentown, NYC, North Jersey, with .2 inch ice accumulation
6-10 inches in northeastern Pennsylvania (with isolated areas getting a foot or more); no appreciable ice accumulation
But really, at this point, do snow totals mean a whole lot? I mean, most of us just got 8-10 inches of snow. Does it really matter if there are 4 inches or 8 inches on top of that? Unless you are insane (I'm looking at you, Dreads), you are probably very ready for winter to be over.
Back to business. Snow and/or a foul mixture falls throughout Wednesday morning, ending by about 1pm. However, unlike in a typical mixed-precipitation event, temperatures will only rise a degree or two above freezing before plummeting back into the lower 20s (and breezy) overnight.
Impacts:
Areas in the first region listed above (Philly, Chester County, etc.) will see widespread icing and power outages. Less so in the second region (Berks, Allentown, etc.), but the threat is still there.
School closing:
Chance of delay Wednesday, 85%
Chance of cancellation Wednesday, 70%
Chance of early dismissal Wednesday, 0.52%
Chance of delay Thursday, 60%
Chance of cancellation Thursday, 20%
Highs on Thursday and Friday will be in the upper 20s, but it will be mostly sunny, so there's that.
The next system is one that continues to bear watching. It appears that it will affect our area in the late-Saturday-night-to-Monday-afternoon time frame. And it looks like it could be a big storm.
Stay tuned for updates!
Shit and two is eight.
My nana was fond of saying that--sometimes in a moment of idle ennui, sometimes when we were playing 500 Rummy and she got an inauspicious deal (or, "I've got a hand like a foot"), sometimes when something annoyed her. She was a rough-around-the-edges, gleefully profane little lady. I miss her.
Anyway, my nana's "shit and two is eight" is apropos here and now, given that we're getting snow tomorrow that will probably close school.
Shit and two is eight.
Precipitation will start as a little snow/sleet mix by 2 or 3am early Monday, then become all snow by 5 or 6am. Steadiest snow--and this will be a heavy, wet snow with large, juicy flakes--will fall from 8 or 9am to about 1pm. Snow tapers and ends by about 3 or 4pm. (Rain/snow line and set-up of intense banding can push totals higher in some places and greatly reduce totals for areas close by.)
Snowfall amounts:
Philly, burbs, Trenton, Lancaster County, Chester County: 5-7 inches
Reading and Berks, Allentown, South Jersey: 3-5 inches
Extreme South Jersey and Southern Delaware: 1-3 inches
Cancellation potentials (for Reading/Berks only):
Delay Monday, 15%
Cancellation Monday, 70%
Early dismissal Monday, 35%
Hoff, People's Choice Awards presenter, 1984.High will only about about 36, and that will happen early in the morning. Temperatures will fall, then hold steady just below freezing for the bulk of the day.
The roads will freeze overnight into Tuesday, so delays would be reasonable. High in the mid 30s.
Delay Tuesday, 40%
Cancellation Tuesday, 15%
The second system of the week will move through beginning about 8pm Tuesday night and continuing to early Wednesday afternoon. Precipitation will begin as snow and sleet overnight, but will mix with (and change to) rain by about 7 or 8am Wednesday. So a delay is feasible, but a cancellation is less likely.
Delay Wednesday, 60%
Cancellation Wednesday, 40%
Sunny Thursday but windy and colder: high of only 31. Similar action on Friday. Saturday 2/8 looks overcast and cold (high 28), but snow-free. Sunday still looks snowy, though.
Stay tuned for ... *sighhhhh*
A quick word about the 40-inch urban legend...
Flapdoodle Gang,
So I'm tracking three storms that could bring winter weather to our area: Sunday night into Monday (likely just an inch or two, if that); Tuesday night into Wednesday (a mixed event with significant icing is looking more and more likely); and next Saturday and Sunday (a potentially larger snow event).
I'll have updated forecasting on these systems throughout the weekend.
Jörg! Keepin' it Swiss.Allow me a moment to address the recent snowpocalyptic rumors, hollered at me in the school parking lot, pinging around the hallowed halls of Mifflin, overheard in the grocery store, shared with me on Facebook, and yodeled in my general direction by an eclectic Swiss forensic accountant named Jörg.
(Alright, I made that last one up.)
One such rumor says that we are going to get 40 inches of snow next weekend. Another puts the figure at 24 inches; still another says 30 inches.
It turns out that the 40 inches figure was a cumulative one - the total precipitation expected from several storms over the course of more than a week. And it's been traced to some teenage kid who shared this map without context, causing it to go viral and everyone to go Defcon-five apeshit.
And the 24 and 30 inch totals were from one model, one run, 9 days before the event would (or would not) happen.
Here are the facts:
The snow ratios - the ratio of snowfall to liquid precipitation - for these three storms are expected to be in the range of 10:1 to 5:1. When it's colder out - as with the powdery events earlier in January - the ratios are 15:1 and even 20:1. So in order to produce 40 inches at a 5:1 snow ratio, we'd need 8 inches of rainfall. (The average total precipitation for this area in the entire month of February is about 3 inches.)
Even at a 10:1 snow ratio, we'd still need 4 inches. And the 24-inch prediction, at a 10:1 ratio, would still require 2.4 inches of liquid, which is kind of a lot.
Any forecast that purports to give snow totals 9 days from the event (or even 5 days from the event) is a steaming load of ballyhoo on a bed of fiddlesticks, festooned with glimmering twaddle.
So there you have it. No 24, no 30, no 40 inches. It's best to be prepared, to be sure. (Atlanta was warned about the snow, but ignored it. And gridlock ensued.) But in reality, these potential winter weather events are likely to produce a figure far under any of those numbers.
Stay tuned for updates!
Wind chill advisory for Tuesday morning = delays or cancellations?
Wind chill advisory has been issued by the National Weather Service for 1am to 10am Tuesday. It's already pretty cold and windy out there (it's about 20 degrees with wind chills in the teens as of 8pm).
Temperatures will plummet to about 2 by the morning commute; wind chill values will be in the -10 to -15 range. It will get up to a balmy 12 in the afternoon, with wind chills climbing to 0. So will we have another day off? A delay?
This is getting tricky now, since we cancelled earlier in January for extreme cold and people are starting to be all "our spring break is gone!" and "we will be going to school in July!" and "this is Obama's fault!" I mean, there's no evidence to support the last statement, but that doesn't seem to stop people otherwise.
So I think superintendents will be pretty conservative: they will use cancellations sparingly. Delays, maybe. But I have a feeling they're feeling pressure to get a full week of school in. And aside from the cold frigidness, there's nothing else looming this week.
Chance of delay Tuesday: 30%
Chance of cancellation Tuesday: 12%
Wednesday morning will be slightly less cold (about 6) and slightly less windy, so wind chills will be at about -5 during the morning commute. Temperatures will get all the way up to 24 on Wednesday.
Chance of delay Wednesday: 24%
Chance of cancellation Wednesday: 6%
The rest of the week looks gradually warmer; it looks to get above freezing by Friday. So whoo!
Morning snow showers possible on Saturday 2/1, then it'll get up to the upper 30s. Sunday, upper 30s too.
Next week, as of now, looks like a bit of a mess.
Bonus points for anyone who knows what movie this is from.(Which is another reason the deciders might be hesitant to call snow days this week.)
Freezing rain on Tuesday 2/4. Snow or sleet on Wednesday 2/5. Rain of frogs on Friday 2/7.
Alright, probably not. But do you know for sure it's not going to happen?
Next weekend (the 8th and 9th) looks potentially foul. But it's early.
And then it warms up for the middle of the month! Highs in the 40s! It will feel like the g.d. tropics.
Stay tuned for updates!