Yesterday, we had the luck of the Irish with temperatures reaching the 60s. However, you can bet your lucky charms that Old Man Winter still has a few tricks up his chilly sleeve.
Overnight, temperatures tumbled through the 50s, 40s, 30s and then reached the very winter-like 20s by daybreak.
To get through this hump you will need to throw back on the winter coat as temperatures — despite plenty of sunshine — will flirt with 40 degrees today, about 15 degrees below normal.
The chill will remain on Thursday with readings in the chilly 40s.
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/Bolaris_Temps_to_drop_snow_coming_by_weeks_end.html#ji5V33QHlv1Gux7c.99
Last month was the third coldest February on record and it tied for fourth place as one of the coldest months ever in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
The average temperature last month was 17.5 degrees as recorded by the National Weather Service at the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport.
January 1918 was just as cold.
Only two other Februaries locally have been colder since 1901, when record-keeping started: February 1934 with an average temperature of 15.4 degrees and February 1979 with an average temp of 15.9 degrees.
Read more:
http://citizensvoice.com/news/february-was-third-coldest-on-record-1.1841705
TANNERSVILLE, PA — Shedding winter layers for swimsuits at Camelback Lodge and Aquatopia will take a month longer than expected.
The newest addition to Camelback Resort, a 453-suite hotel and a 125,000-square-foot indoor waterpark, was tentatively scheduled to open in March. The 16-month, $163 million construction project has been delayed due to winter’s tight grasp on the region.
“Obviously, we’ve had tremendous weather difficulties, and that is a fact, but we are probably 95 percent on schedule,” Arthur Berry, president of Camelback Resort told the Pocono Record.
Read more:
http://www.timesleader.com/news/business-local-news/152089723/
Some of the coldest Siberian-like air of the winter is going to be hovering over Lancaster County for the next 24 hours.
The expected low Friday morning should be around -2 degrees, which could equal the coldest temperature of the year so far.
And it will feel even colder, as the wind chill should make it feel like minus-20 or even colder.
But there’s good news: This weekend’s anticipated snowfall is now looking a little less severe than first feared, Millersville University meteorologist Eric Horst said midday Thursday.
Read more:
The Philadelphia area is preparing for another round of snow to hit during the night.
The snowfall would be the second the area has seen this week, an unusual occurrence in a winter that’s been nearly snow-free thus far.
The biggest threat appears to be hazardous driving conditions overnight, from around midnight through around 6 a.m. Saturday, with snow, ice and a wintry mix threatening to hit much of eastern Pennsylvania and non-coastal parts of New Jersey.
Transportation officials were gearing up for plowing and salting operations. PennDot was warning motorists that clearing roads during a storm was a time-consuming operation, and drivers should use caution.
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150124_Philadelphia_region_braces_for_more_snow.html#oKKHbQdlhTVGVMZ0.99
Philadelphians will wake up Thursday to the winter’s first single-digit day. At 4 a.m. the temperature was expected to plunge to 9 degrees. And AccuWeather was calling for a “Real-Feel” temperature of -14 degrees.
But hang in there.
“It will be getting warmer. Or less cold,” said Gary Szatkowski, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Mount Holly, N.J. “I don’t know if 37 will feel warm. But it will feel less cold.”
To get to 37 degrees – Sunday’s expected high – the city first needs to bear a high of 20 degrees Thursday, 34 degrees Friday, and 25 degrees Saturday.
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150108_Phila__braces_for_mind-numbing_cold.html#75SbwG1JJzQRxZC6.99
The Philadelphia region could see periods of snow and sleet today, forecasters are warning.
The National Weather Service says a mix of rain, snow and sleet is likely for the area through early afternoon. The precipitation should then transition to rain and sleet and eventually just rain by late afternoon, the weather service said.
Any snow is most likely between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. and less than an inch is expected. Any accumulation should be limited to grassy areas and non-paved surfaced. Sleet is most likely to hit the region from early to mid-afternoon.
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/Forecasters_warn_of_snow_sleet_in_Philadelphia_area.html#jEj9TFFifJJzifdS.99
![DSC01676[1]](https://roysrants.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/dsc016761.jpg)
Anyone serious about weather won’t care about this, but the Old Farmer’s Almanac is calling for snow and cold in the Philadelphia region.
What is of perhaps more significant is that its outlook is in line with those posted so far from some more conventional neighborhoods of the meteorological community.
AccuWeather went on record two weeks ago as calling for a snowy winter in the Northeast, with above-normal snowfall around here.
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/weather/Snowy-look-to-outlooks.html#V6F1e0rcLujFSTmJ.99
You may be reading this while wearing summer-ish shorts and a T-shirt, or standing in comfortable weather in your driveway after getting your paper.
But here’s a news flash — winter’s coming.
Even though it’s only late August, school’s just getting ready to start and winter doesn’t officially start for four months, forecasters are already getting a good picture of what to expect for winter 2014-15.
And the picture has both good news and bad news.
Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Lancaster County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A major, late-season storm could dump up to a foot of snow on us Sunday and Monday.
The National Weather Service has issued a hazardous weather outlook that notes the storm likely will produce “a heavy snowfall” from late Sunday through much of Monday.
The Weather Service’s preliminary forecast is for 8 to 12 inches of snow to fall in Lancaster County. AccuWeather is calling for 6 to 10 inches here.
But National Weather Service forecaster Craig Evanego cautioned that the storm is a difficult one to predict.
Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Montgomery County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Norristown, PA – The Montgomery County Commissioners have released the new dates for the “Conversations with your Commissioners” town hall meetings that had to be postponed because of the spate of bad weather over the past few weeks.
The wintry weather forced the postponement of three of the six town hall meetings. Those postponed were in Lower Pottsgrove, Bryn Mawr, and Abington. The new dates for those meetings are:
Wednesday, March 5 at 7 p.m.
Lower Pottsgrove Township Building
3199 Buchert Road
Tuesday, March 11 at 7 p.m.
Lower Merion Township Building
75 East Lancaster Avenue
Saturday, March 22 at 10 a.m.
Abington Township Building
1176 Old York Road
“These conversations with the commissioners are another in a series of ways we are trying to keep residents informed about what we are doing,” said Josh Shapiro, chair of the commissioners. “We also live stream our meetings online and use social media a great deal to inform everyone about what is going on in the county.”
“We urge residents to attend these conversations so they can hear what we have tried to do during our first two years in office, and we can hear what issues are most important to our residents,” Shapiro said.
For more information please call the Commissioners’ office at 610-278-3062.
Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Montgomery County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
NORRISTOWN, PA — Montgomery County officials issued a disaster declaration Wednesday in the wake of Tuesday night’s ice storm that intensified Wednesday morning. By 9:30 p.m., Governor Corbett signed a disaster emergency proclamation. Corbett explained through his Twitter account that the proclamation will assist state and local authorities in responding to the winter storm.
The county’s disaster declaration means that if needed, the county can receive funds from the federal government and the state government. Montgomery County Commissioner Josh Shapiro said the declaration of a disaster also allows for the county to bypass the RFP process for items, like blankets, to give to shelters. He said the disaster declaration does not allow the county to purchase more road salt.
He said the county roads are cleared for the most part and crews are on standby to salt the roads as melting snow and ice freezes into the night.
According to Montgomery County Director of Communications Frank Custer, between 4 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. Wednesday there were 340 electrical fires reported throughout the county, 1,207 road obstructions and 164 vehicle accidents.
So, no, there are no signs of a break in this vicious winter.
However, we will — thank goodness — miss a mega-storm this weekend, which should help in the recovery process of restoring power to many homes still in the dark.
Over the upcoming weekend, a storm system well off the coast, combined with energy racing across the upper Ohio Valley, could produce a period of snow showers from Saturday night into Sunday morning. The region is should expect light accumulation, from a possible coating in most places and up an inch or two. The most likely areas to see accumulation is coastal Cape May County, N.J., and Central and Southern Delaware.
After snow subsides early Sunday, the rest of the day will be windy and cold. Earlier in the weekend, starting Friday, temperatures will be hard pressed to crack the freezing mark.
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/Bolaris_Snow_this_weekend_Probably_Mega-storm_No.html#rtzT92yoXuz0uHmZ.99
Location of Upper Merion Township in Montgomery County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
UPPER MERION TOWNSHIP, PA — If area residents who were without power may have felt like the losers in Wednesday’s icy winter weather games, the winners were the area’s hotels, where “no vacancy” seemed to be a recurring theme.
Then again, depending on where they chose to spend Wednesday night, some of those displaced “losers” may have felt as if their luck was about to change for the better.
“Where else would you want to be but at a casino on a night like tonight, right?” said Michael Bowman, CEO and president of Valley Forge Casino Resort.
With every one of the resort’s 485 rooms due to be snapped up within the hour, Bowman said the lobby was buzzing with folks who had closed up their dark and unheated homes in search of plush lodgings on First Avenue in King of Prussia.
Map of Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States with township and municipal boundaries (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The heaviest precipitation that will hit Berks County today is over, but the storm has toppled numerous trees in the area, blocking roadways and causing power outages.
Nearly 9,000 customers are without power in the Met-Ed and PPL service areas in Berks.
As of 10 a.m., Met-Ed reported there were 5,500 outages in Reading and eastern and northern Berks, while PPL reported 3,200 customers were without power in Wyomissing, western Berks and the Morgantown area in southern Berks.
PPL reported 60,679 of its customers in a 16-county area of the state were affected by outages, while Met-Ed’s parent company, FirstEnergy, said there were 78,000 Pennsylvania customers affected.
The logo of the United States National Weather Service. The source page states that is not an “official” version but it looks very close to the version used on NWS’s website. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The nine inches of snow that fell across the region Monday was just the first part of a three-part recipe for winter misery that may well last through the weekend.
If forecasters are right, you’ll wake up to three-to-six inches of snow that is forecast to fall overnight.
That forecast also calls for the snow to have been subsequently blended with sleet and topped off with an icing of ice and freezing rain.
Specifically, the area may get a quarter- to half-inch of ice from freezing rain throughout Wednesday morning, likely lasting until early afternoon, according to the National Weather Service forecasts.
Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Berks County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
That darn groundhog.
Within 24 hours of forecasting six more weeks of winter, large dense snowflakes began falling in Berks County early Monday, and the storm continued to drop about an inch an hour before tapering off to flurries about 2:30 p.m.
Blame Phil if you were stuck in traffic behind one of the numerous crashes that occurred through the day or lost power from outages, but remember he wasn’t the only messenger.
Forecasters at AccuWeather, near State college, predicted this storm would bring wet, heavy snow that would affect the morning commute, and did it ever. By 11 a.m., with temperatures hovering around 32 degrees, at least a half a foot of snow had fallen in Berks County.
Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Lancaster County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Get ready for a week that will bring us snow, sleet, ice and more snow.
After up to 8 inches of snow was predicted to fall Monday, Tuesday night and early Wednesday will bring more snow and then sleet and ice.
Then the weekend will bring another storm, during a winter that already has given us well over the usual amount of snow.
Jamaica, anybody?
A snowstorm headed toward the Lehigh Valley will likely fall short of becoming a blizzard locally, but meteorologists are expecting heavy snow to arrive Thursday evening and Friday morning.
The National Weather Service is putting out a winter storm warning for Lehigh, Northampton and Warren counties. The three counties under the warning could face 6 to 10 inches of snow and wind gusts ranging from 15 to 25 miles an hour, according to the weather service.
Snow is expected to start around 1 p.m. in the three counties, according to the service.
The same report placed Hunterdon County under a winter storm watch, saying it could see 3 to 7 inches of snow beginning around 2 p.m.
Read more: http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/breaking-news/index.ssf/2014/01/reports_project_between_4_to_1.html
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