~A Look Back at October 2024 And A Bit Of This N That
November 2, 2024
October 2024, is now in the books. It will go down as a dry month and a month that saw temps overall, just above the average for October. That was created by many swings of both above and below normal days. The dry, and often clear weather dominated by high pressure that’s been all too familiar since June, allowed for a continuation of colder valley nights.
With a lengthening night time period, those valleys have more time to chill and that’s exactly what we saw. Enough so that the Northern Canaan Valley Refuge station at 3150′ averaged a monthly minimum temp of 26.3°. That’s low enough for the coldest average minimum temperature for October 2024 in the eastern U.S.
Canaan Valley Refuge WV 26.3°
(occured by radiational cooling-calm clear conditions)
Mt. Washington NH 28.4°
(occurs by the airmass in place accompanied often by strong winds)
Saranac Lake NY 32.3°
(occured mostly by radiational cooling-calm clear conditions)
Before we get back to monthly temperatures, a look at the precipitation on the month:
Bittinger 2NW Valley 1.75″
Canaan Heights/Davis 3SE 1.87″
Canaan Valley Coop 1.43″
Snowshoe 2.37″
Those numbers are well below par for the month:
This has lead to a continuation of dry conditions. A look at a few different drought products. The first of which I think is superior to the drought monitor which will be shown as well.
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And the drought monitor
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Also, I would encourage those interested to go back through some of the great products out there and view previous dry/wet periods in the link below.
Our year to date precip is running very close to 2023
At October 31st.
Bittinger 2NW Valley
-2023 43.76″ -2024 43.52″
Canaan Heights/Davis 3SE
-2023 45.67″ -2024 47.18″
Snowshoe
-2023 44.10″ – 2024 47.88
Snowshoe liquid precip data appears fine. Later on, I’ll explain why temp data now will have no comparison to previous years and snowfall data has suffered for years.
Below is a current soil moisture and streamline image
NOAA sees the dry weather continuing
Long range modeling varies run to run and will struggle. Modeling often tends to trend towards climatology and that does not always pan out.
The 0z ECMWF ensemble mean supports the overall drier than normal conditions through mid month
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As does the GFS ensemble mean
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Anything beyond the next 2 weeks should be took with a huge grain of salt. As we go through the transition season that ofyen features pattern changes, drastic changes in the mid range (10 to 15+ days) can suddenly occur on modeling.
With the dry weather, fallen autumn 🍂 debri and dry forest floor, grass areas and fairly dry gusty cold fronts comes the increased risk of wildfires. Be aware of that! There are burn bans currently in place in areas for this reason.
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Ok back to temps for October
Milder bookends with the cold mid month that did provide for a touch of winter on the Wv Tops
Speaking of high elevation sites. Snowshoe data which for years was observed at 4765′. A station move with no indication on Metadata has occured. Official Temperature data is now being collected at 4200′ at Silvercreek. With this move of distance and vertical feet, the station should not retain the original name and begin a completely new dataset. It has not as of yet.
For October at 4200′ base at SilverCreek
Here is the official data now from 4200′
5am to 5am
Night time mins are MUCH colder. Again 5am reporting time leads to carry over mins as well. Daytime maxes are a bit warmer. They do not offset each other. They put in a huge discontinuity of years of data.
Let’s look at the data tallied at 4534′ CWOP station at Snowshoe. This will not be in a position to chill on radiational cooling nights and more in line with the original coop site. Daytime maxes here will be only slightly above the 4765′ site and mins will run very close
And we see maxes cooler at 4534′ and mins much milder. 35.3 to 43.4. That’s a 8° swing.
Lets look at Spruce Knob at 4820′
So you’d expect the original coop would have ran 58ish and mins around 42ish. So, you can no longer take Snowshoe temp trends with any form of accuracy. This NEEDS addressed.
Also looking compromised is snowfall. As we saw accumulation across the top mid month and lingered several days on top. Refer to the daily post here through that period.
Windy last night and today with early a.m showers, giving way to clearing skies. Clouds lingered longer south.
Bittinger 2NW Valley
precip .14
Dyacon Data Below
Rock Lodge Rd near The Glades afternoon West of Bittinger afternoon Up from Bittinger 2NW Valley afternoon Bittinger 2NW Valley afternoon Bittinger 2NW Valley afternoon Bittinger 2NW Valley afternoon Bittinger 2NW Valley afternoon
Garrett County Airport
Deep Creek Lake morning Meadow Mountain middayDeep Creek Lake afternoon Deep Creek Lake afternoon Cherry Creek at Mosser Rd afternoon
Top of Wisp
–Afternoon
Canaan Heights/Davis 3SE
7am to 7am data mmts coop bp
Climate Reference Network Canaan
Cabin Mt at Bald Knob
Cabin Mt-Western Sods
Spruce Knob
Canaan Valley Refuge
Mt.Davis
station data down since a bear attack on station mid October
Snowshoe
Petersburg Grant County Airport
Elkins Airport
Site Comparison
Dy007-Canaan Valley Refuge 3150′, Dy008-Bittinger 2nw Valley 2600′, Dy002-Cabin Mt at Bald Knob 4350′, Dy003-Cabin Mt-Western Sods 4035′, Dy004-Spruce Knob 4820′, Cvpw2-Climate Reference Network Canaan 3380′, KW99-Petersburg Grant County Airport 961, K2G4 Garrett County Airport 2933′, KCBE Cumberland Airport 774′, KEKN Elkins Airport 1985′, KMGW Morgantown Airport 1227′, PMN16-Mt.Davis 3038′, KDCA-Reagan National 15′, G1472 Snowshoe 4500′, F0183 Burkes Garden 3050′
The Valley vs Cabin Mt
Bittinger 2NW Valley vs Garrett County Airport
Canaan area temps
High Ground Comparison
Up High and Down Low
Up High, High Valley, Low Valley
The Valleys
Wv High Ground Cold Spots vs DCA
RTMA
Radar
Satellite
Flow
Current Surface Features and 500mb Height Anomalies and Flow
Allegheny Mountains Weather 