Phantastic Phull Latitude Phase Phor Philly

Just practicing my alliteration phor the title.  Sorry...Now hear this...This storm will be nothing short than historic for the mountains of WV and PA!  Now how is that for my extremism?!?  But it is April 21 and we are looking at a classic nor'easter that if it were winter, we'd be hearing this event given the moniker "Storm of the New Century"!  If the 12Z NAM snowfall forecast would verify, PA will be declared a disaster area where the snowfall accumulates in excess of 4".  This will be horrendous as the weight of the heavy wet snow will down trees and power lines especially since the trees are in full foliage due to the early spring!  Take a look at this model!



I think the Pirates might not play on Monday although the Colorado Rockies used to this type of weather....well....sort of!  Here, let's take a look at the current visible satellite pic of the gathering gloom...look at the cyclonic circulation already prevalent in the Gulf of Mexico!  Also note the clouds over MN, ND, SK, & MB.  The clouds over the northern plains represent the match that will ignite the fuel which is being seen over the Gulf coast states.  Isn't this exciting?  If this were January, East would be dismissed already for Monday!

Here is the latest prog of the upper air (500 mb) for Monday morning when the negatively titled trough will grab the southern part of the storm and pull it NNW!  That 534 mb closed upper low and all of that vorticity or spin right over us will almost certainly guarantee thunderstorms Monday morning!  This is the type of map I would draw while sitting in Electricity and Magnetism struggling to understand anything about Faraday or Gauss.  That is why I was so happy with "D" for done for what was my most challenging class at PSU!  By the way, nice wx down in the 4 corners area of the US!

And here is the surface reflection of the above air synoptic set-up...

Central PA could be spared the worst of this as the cold conveyor looks to be over the western half of PA...The Allegheny Plateau...while the central mountains and the Susquehanna Valley might get "dry slotted" just a bit.  It's too early to be certain as the exact path of the center of lowest pressure as a shift of only 50-75 miles further east would very likely allow for some accumulating snow to occur on the mountains just north of Harrisburg!  With all of that said, I am still issuing a barometer watching warning as the pressure may drop to 28.70 mb at KMDT sometime Monday morning!  The lowest pressure I've recorded at my humble abode here in northern York County is 28.71 mb with a storm back in January 2009.  Winds will be very gusty as depicted by the isobars and if there is any snow on the trees in the mountains, it will take weeks to clean up this devastation!  Here is the NAM's winds for Monday morning.  You can clearly locate the center of low pressure over ACY around noonish Monday!

And here is the NAM's total precip over the next 72 hours!  You can clearly locate the "dry-slot" over central PA.  Truth be told, i am a bit nervous about this thing becoming so strong that is does draw in dry air towards the center of circulation and robs us of our precious drought busting rains we so desperately need!  Take a looksy.....

I mean, check out the Susquehanna's discharge compared to normal for the last few weeks.  We sure could use the rain just like the Flyers sure could use a victory in Game 6 since if their series goes to a Game 7, well, they surely should mobilize their summer plans as their season will most likely end Election Day Tuesday thanks to those Pesky Penguins!

For just some kicks and giggles, since it's hard for me to look past this impending historical April nor'easter, here is what the GFS and the Euro have for the beginning of NEXT WEEK or about the 1st week of May...both are in reasonable, dare I say, excellent agreement with residual NW flow but some warmth from the plains on the doorstep for CD prom weekend...

So it looks like a stormy couple of days...especially a Stormy Monday!  If you have ~10 minutes to kill...and I strongly suggest you should...Enjoy!

Remember to follow me on Twitter as well since I can quickly put updates onto the Twitter feed, but I do realize that Twitter is like taboo for most of you, analogous to me a few years back and my outlook of conjoining with cell phone technology!

Enjoy your week's end and this classic nor'easter!

Smitty

AA:  All the players are setting the stage for one heckuva storm Sunday into Monday!  It will be one for the record books I do believe!  Flooding rains from NJ to eastern New England.  Damaging wet snows in the mountains of PA and West Virginia.  Drought busting rains for the remainder of the
Mid-Atlantic and northeast US!  No Sunday night baseball from The Fens.