Severe weather south; Rainy weekend

We’re entering a cooler, wetter period after a few mild days this week. With some severe weather to our south, there is a possibility of a rumble of thunder outside overnight, but nothing too bad. The big story will be the amount of precip we receive, which is the reason we’re currently under a flood watch. Over an inch of precip will accumulate overnight tonight and tomorrow, with temperatures struggling to reach 60. Skies will start to break on Saturday morning, but it won’t be long before cloud cover returns at night to bring the low chance of a passing shower. Sunday will be more of the same, with overcast skies and rain. On both Saturday and Sunday, temperatures will rise into the mid-60s and won’t be back to seasonable for a while.

Long-term

Looking at the Seasonal Forecasts from the Physical Sciences Division of the Earth System Research Laboratory (part of NOAA), it appears that May will be warmer than average. However, with a cool start to the month, I think seeing temps in the 80s will be likely into the middle and late parts of the month. As far as precip goes, it should be just-at or under average. This upcoming wet pattern will likely be it for the month, making any other precip events nearly insignificant as far as totals go.

Rain soaks the Mid-Atlantic

It’s raining steady outside my window and all over the Mid-Atlantic region today. There is a small (very small) possibility of thunderstorms today, but I don’t see that happening for the Lancaster area, nor anywhere north.

Rain will likely accumulate to less than an inch today… If I had to say a number, I’d say 0.75 inches. Currently (at 1:00 PM) MU has received just under 0.6 inches thus far today, with a few more shots of rain on the way.

Tomorrow the rain will be gone for the most part but the clouds will continue to linger during the day, not clearing out until around Dinner time. Temperatures will, like today, hover in the low to mid-50s.

Tomorrow night will be very cold- near-freezing temperatures! The clear skies will help temperatures go low and I would not be suprised to see a low of 32 overnight.

Wednesday: Mostly sunny with a few clouds in the afternoon, leading to the possibility of a few showers overnight. High: mid-upper 50s.

Thursday: Clouds clearing leading to a sun-and-cloud filled sky most of the day. High: Nearing 70.

Friday: Clear most of the day with very warm temperatures. A nice, typical Spring day. High: Upper 70s.

Saturday: Warm, with the possibility of some afternoon showers (to ruin any picnics, of course- haha). High: Upper 70s.

That’s all for now!

NAO about to drop below zero for first time since mid-December

The NAO is about to drop below zero for the first time since mid-December. FYI, I don’t know too much about the NAO other then when it goes negative, and we have a northeast storm, it CAN be pretty intense, and mean snow for the Philly/Lancaster area. Well, it’s finally dipping down below the zero line. Is it too late for snow? I think there’s a small chance for a dusting the rest of the season, but I don’t see any more major snow accumulation anytime this season.

Here’s today’s NAO for your viewing pleasure. The black line is what it has been, and the red lines line indicate different model’s forecasts’ for the next week or so. (Click the image to enlarge.)

Tornado over the water west of FL

(Happening NOW @ 18:30z 3/7) There’s a really nice super cell that just developed off the coast of Florida. It’s so nice looking. Here’s some images from wunderground.com… I’ll post some from weatherTAP later if it stays together.

Storms off the southern coast

I’ve been watching the storms off the southern coast for the past few hours now. I have an image of a very nice line that was working its way across the gulf earlier tonight. Here’s a shot from WeatherTAP’s RadarLab HD (click to enlarge):

The red boxes indicate marine warnings. It’s not obvious in this shot, but as time moved on you saw that only the top half of the line was under a warning- I believe this is due to the fact that the National Weather Service only issues marine warnings out to a certain extent. I wonder who (if anyone) issues watches/warnings to sea vessels outside of US waters… hm. A cool shot, nonetheless. Enjoy.

Rain on the way… possibly severe weather, too

Not long after we got our first tease of warm, spring-like weather earlier this week does it look like some possibly severe weather will be on its way. Heavy rain for most of the Lancaster and Philadelphia areas, becoming heavy. The timing of this storm looks like it will begin sometime Friday afternoon, with the most significant rainfall falling overnight and into Saturday. After this storm, temperatures will trend lower than normal before warming up later on next week. That’s it for now… nor major storms forecast after this early weekend event at this point.

Squall line on HPC’s map

I thought this was pretty cool. From the HPC’s Mar. 5 03z surface analysis:

Dusting today/tonight; Weather Conference on Sunday

Nowcast

While many people have been talking about this upcoming clipper as packing a punch, I doubt Millersville will get much out of it. My call is a dusting… nothing on the roads for sure, but maybe some pretty snow on top of the grass.

Short-term forecast

This weekend will finally bring some warmth to the area (again). Temperatures will actually be seasonable- in the 40s. On Monday temps will get up into the 50s! After that, temps will be pretty seasonable (upper 40s).

Following todays storm, conditions will be fairly pleasant until Tuesday, when we will see some heavy rains not unlike this past Tuesday.

Long-term outlook

Apparently, for the past couple of days there have been some monster storms showing up on the GFS for sometime between… the 6th and the 16th, according to Eric Horst (of the MU weather center), while everybody’s favorite forecaster hypemaster, Henry, has been calling the 8th for a big storm. Both of these calls were made yesterday (the 28th), 8-10 days out, so I’m gonna take them with a hunk of salt. However, my roommate and I have been watching the model trends the past few days for far out… we have a running joke of making forecasts over 200+ hours out and saying “Oh man… here it comes… the big one!” The other day when he was going over the GFS he showed me the 13th and said, ” Here it is…. Armageddon!” I, jokingly, posting this date on my white board. And ya know what? I don’t think that date may be far off! It’s too far out to tell now, but a big storm over our spring break may bring some heavy snow to the region. I’ll post more next week as the time frame approaches.

In other news

I’m heading off to “Stormfest” in Pittsburgh on Sunday. Speakers include…

Jamie Rhome from National Hurricane Center (NHC), Kevin Scharfenberg from the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) and Bob Hamilton from the National Weather Service in Buffalo, NY

I’ll be taking pictures (as many as I can) and I’ll be sure to post about my experience at my first weather conference when I get back.

Sledding in the snow

While we didn’t get too much- about 2.2 inches total- it was good enough to sled. Factor in the below-freezing temperatures and freezing rain that fell and you have one good recipe for sledding! At 5 AM Millersville decided on a two-hour delay, but then three hours later at 8 AM made the call to cancel everything. A bunch of us Freshman went sledding- first near the baseball field near our dorm, then over to a local golf course, then back to the baseball field at night. It was a lot of fun!

Anywho, after this storm there’s nothing too big on the way. An all-rain storm is likely to hit the area Tuesday and another storm with a possibility of a wintry mix on Saturday. Also on Saturday I will be heading off to a weather conference in Pittsburgh hosted by CUP (as far as I know, at least). I’ll also work on a verification to post about the past month’s weather. Should be a good time!

Quick storm update

Doing it Henry-style… haha. Just a quick update with this storm. It has started to snow in Millersville. We currently have a trace amount on the sidewalk, hardly anything on the roads. More is coming. My final numbers are 2-4 inches of snow, plus a trace amount of ice. Snow will fall mostly overnight, then switching over to sleet and then freezing rain in the early morning hours. Photos and more tomorrow.

Radar source: Accuweather.com