Snow, Severe and Stormy

Never thought I would be happy to see a few inches of snow on a Saturday morning in late January but happy I was waking up to the beautiful sight of fresh snow.  Here are some of the amounts for the locations we are tracking this year.  None are official because every place I look differs.

Reading: 4 inches

Harrisburg: 5 inches

Wilkes-Barre: 4.5 inches

Allentown: 3.4 inches

Philadelphia: 2.5 inches

We will look at the longer range forecast in just a bit.

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Last year was the worst season I can recall in terms of tornadoes and fatalities.  It seemed like every day something else was happening.  The Alabama tornado that almost leveled the school, the Joplin tornado, Springfield's surprise storm that was crazy to watch and the list goes on and on.  It was bad.  How bad?  This bad.  There were unofficially 552 fatalities in the U.S. last year.  The prior ten years had 564 combined.  The truth of the matter is the United States is smack dab in the middle of a war zone of different air masses.  The only chance is to prepare and stay tuned to forecasts.  The 2012 season has already started for the same areas that were hit last year. Tornado reports from yesterday are marked in red.  Thankfully I have not heard of any fatalities. 

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What can we watch?

A low slowly forms in Texas Thursday that will bring some rain in our direction later in the week.  Temperatures will remain above freezing limiting any chance we see at frozen precip.  This low was the same low that the models had turning up the East coast and becoming a major storm.  Of course, models that far out have a tendency to change.  And it has.  Honestly I'm a bit surprised at how long the model hung on to this one.  It was showing up weeks ago and continued to do so until recently.  What does it mean for us?  Think it is best to watch this one.  Right now the model takes the storm off the Carolina coast.  Can't say I'm really surprised due to the pattern.  Have to keep an eye on it but I'm not very hopeful. 

I'm not going to get too far ahead of myself with the storms.  I can say that there seems to be a big shot of arctic air coming in sometime around Feb 4 to the 8th.  Don't see any storms during that time frame but I'm always up for some cold air.  For the meantime, I will follow the low that tracks east this week to see if we can't squeak something out.  Remember, the October snow never showed up on the model until the day before.  Just like about every other winter storm.