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Most of the area picked up a general 1-to-3 inch snowfall today, with some of the highest elevations seeing 4. Now our sights are set on tomorrow night and Friday morning. There’s still a good bit of uncertainty with regard to the track of the low, with a farther west storm bringing heavy snow [...]
 Are you the winner? It’s now time for the moment you have all been waiting for… THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE WINNERS OF THE SNOW PREDICTION CONTEST!
The contest is now over and we’ve checked and double-checked the totals. Here are the winners of the snow prediction contest. If your name is listed below, expect a call from us sometime in the near future… (Read More)  Filed in: Snow, Snow Prediction Competition, Snow Totals, Winter Storm, Wintercast 10-11 |  Comments: 11 comments |  Share:
Here’s a look at what we picked up in a few locations Monday afternoon through early Tuesday morning. Some of the highest totals were in southern Cambria County, where Richland Township reported 12.6″: I love the fact that people are blaming Punxsutawney Phil for the double-dose of winter weather that’s moving into the Alleghenies tonight and again tomorrow night. As expected, we’re not quite done with winter just yet. Here’s a breakdown of what to expect over the next couple of days: Sunday Night: Warmer air will try to infiltrate the area from the south. Our northern tier counties will likely stay as snow while the counties south of I-80 will likely see a mix of snow, sleet, freezing rain, and even rain farther south. This will taper overnight. – CHECK – There was 3 to 4 inches of slushy snow in Centre County this morning with 7 inches in Ridgway! Monday: Expect periods of mixed showers with areas north seeing the best bet for snow and the areas south seeing the best chance for rain. In between, anything that falls could be rain or snow. Monday Evening: The next round of heavier precip moves in and will likely bring more snow than anything else. At this point (Sunday night), it looks like the divider line between snow and mix could be around Route 22. That could change. Areas north of that could see a significant snowfall. Areas south will likely see the mix change to snow with some ice mixed in. This would keep accumulations lower there. Update: This may not have been completely clear. I didn’t mention it but the snow will not be as heavy north of I-80. This is the part of the forecast with the most uncertainty. (Read More) February of 2010 saw record-breaking snowfall across portions of southern Pennsylvania, with some locations picking up over 80″ in just 28 days. This year, however, has been much different. Take a look at the average snowfall across the southern half of the state from February 1 through 16 of this year compared to last: [...]  How Many Of These? I was working on my last blog post about no two snowflakes being alike when I found myself thinking… “How many snowflakes are there?” It’s one of those questions that you really cannot answer on your own, unless you are a cloud physicist. That’s why Cindy Stauffer of the lancasteronline.com went to find one. She didn’t have to go far to get her answer. After starting at Millersville University and talking to a meteorologist, she was referred to the cloud physicist at Penn State University. After doing lots of mathematical formulas, they determined that there are 5.2 quintillion snowflakes in a 5-inch snow over 2,000 square miles. Break that down to 1.04 quintillion snowflakes in one inch of snow over 2,000 square miles. Break it down further to 5.2 x 10^14 snowflakes in one inch of snow over one square mile. That’s all well and good but think about our snow in Johnstown so far this winter… 83.0 inches. Let’s assume that’s the average for Cambria County, which is about 20 miles wide by 35 miles north and south (700 square miles). With those assumptions, Cambria County has seen… (Read More)  Snow Through Tuesday Afternoon Hey everyone! Happy Super Sunday to you! Our next weather event looks to come in sometime on Monday morning and get out of here by Tuesday afternoon. In its wake, we’ll see some light snow accumulations AFTER seeing a mix of rain and snow on Monday. Here’s the fairly simple timeline: Monday AM: Light snow arrives. With temperatures still on the chilly side, it’ll likely start as snow. Noon: Temperatures start to warm up and with temps in the mid 30s, we’ll start to see some rain mixing in with the light snow. This will continue through the afternoon. Don’t expect much in the way of accumulations with temperatures close to the freezing mark and rain mixing in. Evening: The changeover back to snow will happen sometime later in the afternoon or into the evening. This is when the accumulations will start. Tuesday Overnight: The snow will continue with accumulations building into the morning. The snow will be relatively light and so will the accumulations. Morning: Scattered snow showers will continue. We’ll also see a rapid drop in temperature and winds picking up. Wind chills will be rather cold. Noon: The snow should taper off pretty quickly with just lingering flurries into the afternoon. It stays windy and cold for the afternoon. Click in for a look at the Futurecast snowfall totals map… (Read More) I just figured I’d post a couple of links to help you pass the time until the next Snowpocalypse. This is some of the information and some of the pictures from last year’s storm. It’s been exactly one year since we had to shovel out! The storm was big enough that I had to [...] Filed in: Pictures, Severe Weather Team Blog, Snow Totals, Winter Storm | Comments: 4 comments | Share:
 Futurecast - Tuesday Morning Numbers have been crunched and models have been perused and now it’s time to come up with a forecast for this messy storm coming from the south just in time for the middle of the week. We’ve been talking about this one for a few days now and the forecast is beginning to become clearer… at least not as murky! Let’s put this into a timeline form because it’ll make it easier to understand and follow. I’ll also be noting the north and south a lot because this storm looks like a different beast for both locations. For simplicity’s sake, let’s say the boundary line is I-80. That line is very flexible, however and can shift either north or south with later model runs. (Read More)  The clothesline is drooping. This was a wet, heavy snow. Another storm is in the books for the region and this one packed a punch in a place that doesn’t normally get a lot of snow… our southeast portion of the viewing area. Areas like Bedford and Fulton Counties picked up a boatload of snow and now the clean-up begins. Again, we’re lucky because this could have been a lot worse with a shift a little farther to the west. Take a look at this picture on the right side of the post. It shows you how this snow was different than most of the other snows we’ve seen this season. Notice the clothesline is being weighed down by the snow? This snow wasn’t the fluffy, blowing snow. It was more of a wet, heavy snow. This kind of snow seems to cause more problems on the roads because it is slushy and grimy. If you like to build snowmen or throw snowballs, this is the perfect snow for that. If you watched the 6 PM news, you saw that in my live shot. The snow tapered off early in the evening and left some impressive totals across the southeastern portion of the viewing area. Here’s a list of some of those totals, including our reports and those of the National Weather Service. (Read More) Here’s a look at snow totals for Thursday evening through Friday evening: Totals will be highest in the Laurel Highlands where 4 to 8 inches are likely by Friday night. Most of the Alleghenies outside of the Laurels can expect 2 to 4 inches, with up to 5 inches around Indiana and Punxsutawney. [...] It’s funny how a storm prediction can go so well and so wrong all at the same time. The most recent storm did just that. We had the snow totals for the initial, widespread batch of snow right on the money. Check out these totals from across the region for the first round of snow…  Snow Totals from Round 1 Our initial prediction was for between 2 to 5 inches or 3 to 6 inches depending on when you watched. For the most part, we were right on with that. (Read More) Picture from Bert Tost. DuBois, Saturday at 4:30 PM Hey everyone, here’s a look at some of the snow totals from over the weekend in the Alleghenies… …BEDFORD COUNTY… BUFFALO MILLS 3.0 SCHELLSBURG 2.5 SAXTON 2.0 RAINSBURG 1.5 WOLFSBURG 1.0 RAINSBURG 1.0 EVERETT 1.0 EVERETT 1.0 RAINSBURG Trace …BLAIR COUNTY… ALTOONA 4.0 WILLIAMSBURG [...] Well, the season is behind us now (at least I hope it is). The National Weather Service has put out their snowfall map for the 2009-10 season and there really aren’t any surprises. Take a look at the map below and see how your location did. Notice the high hilltops near the ski resorts [...] It’s hard to believe that it’s been 17 years since the Blizzard of ’93. I was a kid (10 years old) in Pittsburgh at the time and can remember making snow tunnels and going out with my dad as he plowed driveways. It didn’t seem like that big of a deal, even though we were off school for a while because of it. Enter 2010. We have a snowstorm on February 5th and 6th that drops 24-36 inches of snow across parts of our region. Now, I’m driving and have a job. I have to shovel all of the snow off of my driveway. Now I understand the big deal! The Blizzard of ’93 happened on March 12-14 (give or take) and dropped a lot of snow with blowing winds across record-cold temperatures. It also caused many deaths up and down the east coast. Check out the snowmap below, courtesy of the NWS in State College. Take note of the tremendous snowfall at Laurel Summit in Somerset County: We’ll get a nice break this weekend and early next week, but winter is not over yet. We still have a high potential for more storms through the end [...] For the southern half of Pennsylvania, February was an exceptional month as far as snowfall was concerned. Not just here in the Alleghenies, but also eastward to Harrisburg and Philly. It started last weekend when I came in to the Severe Weather Center and had a phone message from a lady asking about a storm on March 7th. (Keep in mind, this was February 20th!) I didn’t hear much about it again through the week until Saturday and Sunday when people started to ask me about it again. Where is this all coming from? Really, it stems from one guy… Lester Moyer. I’m not going to speak ill of the guy because I don’t know him. Here’s what I do know after reading several articles about him…
Let’s examine the above one-by-one… Here’s the latest snowfall totals from across the Alleghenies. The first is for this month (so far), and the second is for the 2009-2010 season (so far).
The last time Johnstown hit 100″ of snow in a season was 2002-2003. Before that, you have to go back to [...] So with about one and a half months left to go in winter (give or take), it’s time for an update as to how much snow we’ve seen and how it compared to the averages. Click into the post to see how much snow has fallen across the Alleghenies. |
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