Jan 15(Tues) min max avg
Bitt 2nw valley 20.0 23.6 21.8
Garrett College 20.4 23.4 21.9
Can-Heights 18.2 20.9 19.5
CRN-Canaan
Cabin Mt 15.6 18.3 16.9
Cabin Mt north 16.7 19.0 17.8
Spruce Knob 13.8 19.2 16.5
Snowshoe 15.1 21.9 18.5
Can-Valley Floor 19.8 23.2 21.5
Can-Valley Floor N 19.9 23.0 21.4
7Springs 17.3 21.5 19.4
Cloudy, high ground fog. Some extremely light freezing drizzle last night, and a touch this morning and some very fine light snow which was the moisture in the air freezing. A trace of snow fell from this. Trees all across the region are rimed up pretyy nice.
Temp profile this afternoon
Radar
Satellite (NWS call for partly sunny thos afternoon was a fail)
Flow
Surface features and 500mb height anomalies and flow
Pics today
My Facebook Ramble
Rambling thoughts on the good, bad ,ugly ahead…
-Pockets of black ice tomorrow morning, some fine light snow as well tomorrow. Light accumulations
– Thursday evening-night-Friday, Snow pushes in and I think some snows over the mountains of 2-4/3-5″ nature. Predawn hours of Friday, maybe some brief liquid mixes in with borderline temps but mainly a snow event for the high ground 2000’+north of Canaan, 3000’+ south of Canaan. East side of the mts, cold air depth is greater so you may get snow lower.
The weekend- Just sleep on Saturday, don’t look outside, wear earplugs so you don’t hear the rain on the roof. Rain looks to come in during the day, perhaps as a brief mix to start. This can change. That energy is yet off the southern California coast, and has to clear the Rockies, that the models can struggle with…. a shift of 50-100 miles on that Low position wouldn’t be unheard of. That said, models unfortunately have not budged off tracking the low into Wv, and southwest Pa. That’s dreadful. With this track somewhat “probable”, the possibility of extended icing(no Jim Odom, not the cake kind) does exist in the high ground in Garrett and high ground northeast. This setup really doesn’t trap the cold air east of the mountains like a classic CAD(cold air damming) event does. There isn’t cold air in place there and its a borderline temp event, so the northern Allegheny high ground from Garrett, Somerset look to have the best chance at ice for part of the storm before that goes to rain as well. A cold rain. “As track stands now”.
Following that into Sunday- rain to snow across the mountains, flash freeze, rapidly falling temperatures, all the way down to -5 to -15 by MONDAY a.m. The NWS tends to go to weak and adjust colder as we get closer. As this type of cold is a threat to property with water lines, maybe things need sealed up better, pets, livestock, I’d rather go to the extreme in saying what those temps can be vs waiting so those preps can be made. Snowfall after the changeover, 3-6″ of windblown fluff would be the initial call. That’s the extreme period. Monday holds bitter but begins to relax.
This is the first of multiple severe cold outbreaks. Now, the bugaboo, in the midst of these, and we experienced this in Jan 14′. Extreme cold with a poor storm track. Which initially features extreme cold and rapid mild ups before the pattern settled in. Midweek after the extreme cold, a system comes out of the South and throws what this far out looks to be another mixed event, to snow and back to the bitter cold scenario. We then look to shift the storm track more favorable in February. We had a pattern change Jan 9th, cold air is now more dominant, sure it sucks to have a storm cut west for snow lovers, but it’s at least far from a boring winter pattern ahead.
Plus factors to the extreme cold- 13/14, 14/15. Those cold extremes killed off a lot of the hemlock wooly adelgid in the area. Some areas that were infested, are yet adelgid free. Not the entire area. This extreme cold can go to great lengths to kill it back again.
– Main things, storm track sucks, extreme cold on the table, upslope snows will occur and better opportunity for snows going into Feb..
P.S- Excuse typos, typing from my phone and this autocorrect is a piece of shot and corrects the right word to the wrong one.
Allegheny Mountains Weather 