Cloudy, light fluff from overnight continuing until early afternoon before skies broke in my area, and earlier east, south .
Temp profile this afternoon
Radar
Snowfall- Extremely high ratio fluff overnight. Light winds, softly falling flakes stacking one on the other. Davis 3SE recorded a 48 to 1 ratio. I (@ Bittinger 2nw Valley)picked up 2.3″ of fluff overnight and .3 today from 6am until snowfall ceases early afternoon. 6am Depth of 6.4″ and depth measured in various location on avg was around 6″. At 33.4″ on the season.
Satellite
Flow
Surface features and 500mb height anomalies and flow
Pics today
Upslope vs Downslope, images shortly after 9am. North Fork Mt to Canaan and Keysers Ridge to Oldtown.
Dolly Sods, WV,Bearden Knob
On the models…
Made a few Facebook post about what I think snowfall amounts will be. Higher than NWS forecast and others, so we’ll see. Calm winds, enhanced ratios ….Thoughts on total weekend amounts that may yet need tweaked: General purposes only, not every town listed, if your town isnt listed, consider a nearby listed location
As I usually lean low to mid range of totals, in this rare instance I lean mid to high range.
Johnstown 3-6″ Any trend south will tweak numbers lower here. North a tweak up.
Somerset 3-6″
7Springs 3-6″
Grantsville 4-8″
Bittinger 5-9″
Finzel 4-8″
Frostburg 4-8″
Lavale 2-5″
Cumberland 2-5″
Cranesville 4-8″
Terra Alta 4-8″
Davis 5-9″
Canaan 5-9″
Whitmer 4-8″
Harman 4-8″ From here up to Somerset, best snows are later Saturday, Saturday night. Best snows Sunday, Harman south and ratios decreased Sunday below 3000′
Elkins 2-5″(best snow Saturday may run north of here, best Sunday just south, elevation will hurt ratio Sunday with temps lower to mid 30s)
Snowshoe 7-11″ (Similar across HSH and Cranberry)
Marlinton 5-9″ Ratios not as good Sunday, but main precip swath should help amounts in this area.
Overall models putting out .3 to .6 on average liquid.
Cloudy, windy, light fluff continuous through the day. Temps remaining very cold. Windchills below 0
Temp profile this afternoon.
Radar, no estimates as radar not picking up on any of the light fluff that fell today
Snowfall- I picked up 1.0″ overnight through 6am, then 1.3″ today 6am to 6pm for a evebt total of 6.6″, 31.8″ on the season….. light fluff still falling, total new snow depth at 5.1″(with settling) Speaking of settling, obs in wind prone areas are much less vs sheltered areas.
Satellite
Flow
Surface features and 500mb height anomalies and flow.
Cloudy, windy, periods of snow, varying in intensity from very light to heavy pockets. Blowing n drifting
Temp profile this afternoon
Radar with estimates 9pm to 9pm … To note Bittinger 2nw/Accident 3.9 E picked up .35 yesterday and last night’s rain before changeover. Also to note, radar estimates for precip are worthless for upslope snow as radar overshoots a lot of the precip in the mts
Snowfall- Picked up 4.3″ at 6pm boardsweep. 29.5 on the season
Satellite
Flow
Surface features and 500mb height anomalies and flow
Cloudy start and a wide variety of temps……..valley areas of ice yet this morning, elsewhere in the 40s….turned into a mild day across the board, showers, few thunderstorms, and turning cold before midnight with frozen precip returning
Temp profile this afternoon
Radar with estimates 10pm-10pm
Satellite
Flow
Surface features and 500mb height anomalies and flow
Cloudy, east wind..Early precip mainly virga. After nightfall precip did break out and was in the freezing rain form north causing bad roads. North central and eastern Garrett.
Temp profile this afternoon
Radar with estimates 9pm-9pm (Radar estimates poor today, showing virga as accu)
Satellite
Flow
Surface features and 500mb height anomalies and flow
Cloudy early, high ground fog,,some Wv Rime at the high spots, clouds breaking and plenty o sun in the afternoon
Temp profile this afternoon
Radar void of the low level moisture early
Satellite
Flow-
Surface features and 500mb height anomalies and flow
Few pics on the day
On the models….
Cold overnight, mts and east much colder tomorrow vs west of the mts…precip late may be a brief period of freezing rain. Temps rise predawn hours of Tuesday, hold through Tuesday a.m, then fall later Tuesday with upslope overnight and Wednesday…looking like a 2-4/3-6 type deal in the upslope areas
Overcast, dimmed sun at times. Some high ground fog south and light precip.
Temp profile this afternoon.
Radar with estimates 9pm-9pm
Satellite
Flow
Surface features and 500mb height anomalies and flow
On the models….
Short term,,rain pressing in tonight…that rain may end as wet snow across the Wv high ground with some wet accumulation. Especially above 3700-4000′ The higher tomorrow the higher the likelihood of snow and some sticking
Cloudy brisk day…A few tiny random flakes late morning. Skies did brighten and break a little late day. Some high ground rime in Wv. Had my first below freezing temp today as temps trended down through the morning.
Temp profile this afternoon
Nothing to show radar wise
Satellite
Flow
Surface features and 500mb height anomalies and flow
Few pics by David Carroll today from Spruce Knob and Bald Knob at Canaan as he did station maintenance and a install.
Beginning today, the new northern Canaan Valley site will be listed to compare with the original frost pocket site at Timberline Rd
On the models…
Short term, some rain pressing in tomorrow and on Saturday that rain should end as wet snow across the mts. Flakes to 2500-3200′, slushy coatings to 1″ 3200-4000′, 4000′ + 1-2″.. The key will be how fast it zips through.
Longer term, this dreadful zonal flow, southeast ridge combo, trough in the SW continues awhile longer and while dominant the next 2 weeks, it may begin to break down somewhat. Now models have shown this awhile to only back down and reverse course So, keep an eye on SE ridge, the EPO, MJO, and the effects of the strat warm. Tonight’s weeklies breaks it down as follows
The winter lovers blues….
Living in the mid Atlantic, these dismal periods are frequent, this current one is exceptionally so. But, does that mean all is lost? No hope for a good winter? Oh. if we have to wait another 12-15 days, it may as well not snow feeling? I get it, but, some of the most memorable, bad winters and ones that set the standard bar were not all as great as some remember .
Around a month ago I was browsing through my great Aunts scrapbook of photos. I came across a message she wrote above some photos. “Winter of 1958, worse winter we had for years. We were snowed in for the whole week, mailman or milkman couldn’t get through”
Why for 1958, the worse winter in years, that is pretty significant. Stop right now. What are you picturing about that Winter? I would guess unrelenting snow? Brutal cold. None of this BS of rain, mild 40s, 50s. That’s back when winters were winters November until spring. In reality, that in most cases is a false image that is rare in this part of the country. Let’s look at that winter of 57-58. Why was it so bad?
It started out I bet gangbusters
Oh…a November that was much warmer than this year. Snow sparse, minimal days with any cover. Temps routinely in the 50s. Ehh, November is early. December no doubt turned around…
Bare ground for Christmas, 6 days of 50s and plenty of rain leading up to Christmas day. We end December with 5.4″ of precip on the month, we stand at 26.2 inches of snow on the season. We just ended this December at this site using midnight obs time with 5.4″ of precip and I stand at 25.2″ on the season. This December overall was colder than the 57 December.
What did those SST anomalies look like. The Dec-Feb blend had a fairly healthy Nino, weakening to a modiki Nino look , a warm NE Pacific., cooler towards the dateline, cooler west coast of Australia… that should been a cold signal. It wasn’t one early December was well above.
This year we have , warm NE Pacific, a overall warmer north Pacific, but a small below anomaly area near the dateline at 40N at the dateline. That should be enough as wave lengths shorten to get some trough digging, near the dateline,ridge pumping east of that into Alaska and western Canada and we lose the broad fast west to east flow. One bugaboo, I dislike which I think helps delay the trough going east, the cooler waters off the west coast of Mexico and coolish vs its surroundings off Cali, helps to continue to reform allowing that trough to reposition in the SW, and that helps keep the heights pumped up along SE coast. As wave lengths shorten, and the north Pacific pattern evolves, cold comes. That SE weakens and becomes a friend vs foe as it is now. What hurts at one period, helps another.
So in January of 58, if it was the worse winter in years, it no doubt had to turn fast. We ( I wasnt alive yet, so they) did run a cold spell for early month, but mainly dry, and that gave way to favorable snow pattern in the 15-20th period. So it took until week 3 of January until good snows came, and a consistent active snow pattern arrived.
In February , now that’s what I’m talking about. Minimizing mild temps and holding a snowpack now for a month and a half by the end if the month.
But wait, theres more, March remained in an active period. Typically modoki el Ninos back winter off in March, but just as multiple good ingredients do not equal a good start to winter, one bad ingredient towards the end of the season doesn’t wipe out other good factors. That is the north Pacific for late winter. I think that warmth there is a bigger factor for cold as we go later in the season.
While this zonal flow was expected, it’s now also much longer lived than expected, and is depressing the minds of those winter lovers, but do you think anyone who lived the winter of 57-58 recalls much what occured November, December, and the brown wet warm 50s Christmas week? A Cold but mainly dry Jan start. Not at all. For a ” worse winter” in years , and having it occur mid Jan through March, it shows how 6-8 weeks of good winter erased the memory of the start… this is what the images left in the minds of those folks are for winter 58…
This is not saying we are going to that. We do not have a pattern that in any way is far different than what delivered that. We have a pattern that can deliver a good week 3 Jan through March (Anything earlier is a bonus) and put some snowy images in your mind when all is said and done that 18-19 was one to remember. Only time will tell.
Allegheny Mountains Weather 