July 17, 2024

July 17, 2024July 18, 2024 / alleghenymountainsweather / Leave a comment

July 17, 2024

Forest Service Cam offline since 6/24/21

July 17(Wed)

Lots of clouds, few showers. Little sun. Evening showers ahead of cold front

Bittinger 2NW Valley

rainfall .08

Dyacon Data Below

Garrett County Airport

Top of Wisp

Canaan Heights/Davis 3SE

Climate Reference Network Canaan

Atop Canaan Ski area

Cabin Mt at Bald Knob

Cabin Mt-Western Sods

Spruce Knob

Canaan Valley Refuge

Mt.Davis

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 Mt.Davis

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

Cranesville

The Yough at Sang Run

July 16, 2024

July 16, 2024July 17, 2024 / alleghenymountainsweather / Leave a comment

July 16, 2024

Forest Service Cam offline since 6/14/21

July 16(Tues)

Some localized areas of predawn showers, then sun, clouds, breezy, hot day, followed up with a evening round of much needed showers and storms

Bittinger 2NW Valley

rainfall-late

–

Garrett County Airport

Top of Wisp

Canaan Heights/Davis 3SE

Climate Reference Network Canaan

Atop Canaan Ski area

Station getting some artificial heating

Cabin Mt at Bald Knob

Cabin Mt-Western Sods

Spruce Knob

Suspicion fan had malfunctioned causing shield to not aspirate and heat up beyond actual air temp

Canaan Valley Refuge

Mt.Davis

Snowshoe

Petersburg Grant County Airport

Elkins Airport

Site Comparison

The Valley vs Cabin Mt

Bittinger 2NW Valley vs Mt.Davis

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

Oakland

July 15, 2024

July 15, 2024July 16, 2024 / alleghenymountainsweather / Leave a comment

July 15, 2024

Forest Service Cam offline since 6/24/21

July 15(Mon)

A warm to hot sunny day with a few brief cloudy intervals. Breezy.

Bittinger 2NW Valley

Dyacon Data Below

Garrett County Airport

Top of Wisp

Canaan Heights/Davis 3SE

Climate Reference Network Canaan

Atop Canaan Ski area

Cabin Mt at Bald Knob

Cabin Mt-Western Sods

Spruce Knob

Suspicions are the fan in the radiation shield is having some issues and not functioning properly. Therefore this can lead to max temps being a bit exaggerated

Canaan Valley Refuge

Mt.Davis

Snowshoe

Petersburg Grant County Airport

Elkins Airport

Site Comparison

The Valley vs Cabin Mt

Bittinger 2NW Valley vs Mt.Davis

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

Sideling Hill Creek at North craft

Town Hill

Polish Mt

Martin’s Mt

Cumberland to Lavale

Frostburg

Savage Mt to Grantsville

Oakland

Cranesville

The Yough at Sang Run

July 14, 2024

July 14, 2024July 15, 2024 / alleghenymountainsweather / Leave a comment

July 14, 2024

Forest Service Cam offline since 6/24/21

July 14 (Sun)

Clear start, then clouds and sun

Bittinger 2NW Valley

Dyacon Data Below

Garrett County Airport

Top of Wisp

Canaan Heights/Davis 3SE

Climate Reference Network Canaan

Atop Canaan Ski area

Cabin Mt at Bald Knob

Cabin Mt-Western Sods

Spruce Knob

Canaan Valley Refuge

Mt.Davis

Snowshoe

Petersburg Grant County Airport

Elkins Airport

Site Comparison

The Valley vs Cabin Mt

Bittinger 2NW Valley vs Mt.Davis

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

void

Satellite

Flow

Current Surface Features and 500mb Height Anomalies and Flow

33 East of Harman at the divide

July 13, 2024

July 13, 2024July 14, 2024 / alleghenymountainsweather / Leave a comment

July 13, 2024

Forest Service Cam offline since 6/24/21

July 13(Sat)

Clouds, sun

Bittinger 2NW Valley

Dyacon Data Below

Garrett County Airport

Top of Wisp

Canaan Heights/Davis 3SE

Climate Reference Network Canaan

Atop Canaan Ski area

Cabin Mt at Bald Knob

Cabin Mt-Western Sods

Spruce Knob

Canaan Valley Refuge

Mt.Davis

Snowshoe

Petersburg Grant County Airport

Elkins Airport

Site Comparison

The Valley vs Cabin Mt

Bittinger 2NW Valley vs Mt.Davis

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

July 12, 2024

July 12, 2024July 13, 2024 / alleghenymountainsweather / Leave a comment

July 12, 2024

Forest Service Cam offline since 6/24/21

July 12(Fri)

Sun, clouds. Rain well east. Building clouds in parts of the region, more sun north.

Bittinger 2NW Valley

Dyacon Data Below

Garrett County Airport

Top of Wisp

Canaan Heights/Davis 3SE

Climate Reference Network Canaan

Atop Canaan Ski area

Cabin Mt at Bald Knob

Cabin Mt-Western Sods

Spruce Knob

Canaan Valley Refuge

Mt.Davis

Snowshoe

Petersburg Grant County Airport

Elkins Airport

Site Comparison

The Valley vs Cabin Mt

Bittinger 2NW Valley vs Mt.Davis

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

Cranesville

East at Big Meadows

Chincoteague

The Beat Of The Drought Goes On…

July 12, 2024July 12, 2024 / alleghenymountainsweather / Leave a comment

July 11,2024

Missed opportunities were the theme of this week as the Alleghenies remain well below normal in terms of precipitation. The remnants of Beryl passing by north as seen below on the previous 3 day precipitation amounts

and now adding insult to injury, some hefty rains passing by east upcoming through tomorrow morning as modeled below off the Euro.

Leaving us missing out on 2 golden opportunities to put a dent in the current rainfall deficit.

So far July is starting out dry and as we push halfway through the month. With most areas falling well under a inch month to date. Some areas under a tenth. July deficits through the date-

The lack of rain though has been ongoing since around mid May when things really began drying out.

since May 15th at Bittinger 2NW Valley I’ve seen 4.92″

other areas since May 15th, with comparisons to other years

Cassleman Gauge at Grantsville 4.23″

At Bayard 7.59″

Elkins 5.37

Frostburg 3.53

Savage River Dam 4.17

Davis 3SE (Canaan Heights) 6.98″

Canaan Valley

Blackwater Gauge at Davis 6.16″

All of these numbers running well below the average for the period

60 day Anomalies

60 day percentage of normal

Temps the previous 60 days overall running above normal

Since July 1

Below normal precip, above normal temps has continued to worsen the current drought situation. As of July 9th the:

Drought Monitor now looks like

state by state

4 Week Evaporative Drought Demand

Soil Moisture

Stream Flow

Glade Run near Bittinger. Many area waterways running low.

From a historical perspective, this pattern has repeated itself many times. We are in a period of time where every event is hyped as “worst ever, driest ever, wettest ever, hottest ever, etc”. It’s simply a product of a pattern that’s occured before, will occur again. With weather there are averages. Not normals. Normal is the worst word ever to describe what should happen any given day, month, year. Our averages are made up of extremes. For a historical perspective let’s look at the long running Drought Severity index

This for the Allegheny Region of Wv

July

August

That’s pretty dang consistent.

Summertime precip (June-Aug)

Pretty consistent on the ebbs and flows of wet,dry,wet,dry.

With more hot weather ahead , and for the most part dry through Sunday, the current conditions will likely get a bit worse before they get better.

The potential outlook as we get through this next bout of heat that goes in to next week is, as it passes, we see a increased storm risk. Yes, storms often generally produce a lot of runoff with the ground this hard, but anything is better than nothing. That’s the initial potential and a bit further out as we go to the last 3rd of July, the ridge looks to build in the west and that leaves the mid Atlantic and southeast with a bit more low pressure and cooler conditions. That’s at least a hint on modeling for now. These dry patterns often are hard to get rid of. Dry breeds dry. Dry also aids in heat.

In terms of heat. As it’s been above normal. Again, from a historical perspective. This is not viewed in a lense of, it’s never been this bad. We are not even close to some of the recorded hottest periods recorded locally.

Let’s hop back to some incredibly hot summers. The hottest period on record for many area stations occured in August of 1918. The 7 day Avg Max Temp at Frostburg was a whopping 97.5

at Cumberland 103! Also tied in July of 1936 we’ll get to in a sec

To note, I am not positive of the daily recording time. It may have been 5pm to 5pm recording station. If that’s the case, that’s why you see a double 109, 101. In these cases that does impact the 7 day avg max. That would take some more digging in to.

the original form

I do believe that’s 5pm, some of the prior month forms appear to be 5. So, this does throw some issues in compiling data, max,mins. Now days most coop stations are 7am recordings. In which come transitional and winter seasons, daily mins are often duplicated. It presents a challenge if you want to compare. At any rate, that period of heat is impressive!

Oakland

the period in maps

as a impressive of a heat dome as you’ll get!

in 1936, July

Grantsville

Westernport

Bayard

a intense week but less impressive vs 1918. The intensity centered west initially

The longterm Summertime Temp trends (Jun-Aug)

Garrett County

Bayard Summers

This season overall avg stands at 66.3. The variable is recording time/site change which is nearly impossible to dissect that variable.

Looking ahead

euro 7day temp Anomalies. Showing a reprieve after this next 5 day period

July 11, 2024

July 11, 2024July 12, 2024 / alleghenymountainsweather / Leave a comment

July 11, 2024

Forest Service Cam offline since 6/24/21

July 11(Thurs)

Breezy, mainly cloudy. More sun as you go south of Garrett County. Pleasant day. Felt a world different vs yesterday

Bittinger 2NW Valley

rainfall .02

Dyacon Data Below

Garrett County Airport

Top of Wisp

Canaan Heights/Davis 3SE

Climate Reference Network Canaan

Atop Canaan Ski area

Cabin Mt at Bald Knob

Cabin Mt-Western Sods

Spruce Knob

Canaan Valley Refuge

Mt.Davis

Snowshoe

Petersburg Grant County Airport

Elkins Airport

Site Comparison

The Valley vs Cabin Mt

Bittinger 2NW Valley vs Mt.Davis

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

a bit of low moisture early a.m after Daylight in spots not picked up by radar.

Satellite

Flow

Current Surface Features and 500mb Height Anomalies and Flow

Cranesville

The Yough at Sang Run

Oakland

Grantsville to Savage Mt

Lavale to Cumberland

Town Hill

July 10, 2024

July 10, 2024July 11, 2024 / alleghenymountainsweather / Leave a comment

July 10, 2024

Forest Service Cam offline since 6/24/21

July 10(Wed)

Lots of sun. Some clouds. Showers mainly east. Strong southerly winds. A rare component of strong south winds and 80+ high ground. Cold front through later in the day with clouds, and winds shifting west. Turning cooler vs the days maxes and lowering DPs.