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Yesterday’s storm was not too bad at all for a late October storm system.  It deepened throughout the day and the wind picked up.  We  had howling winds most of the night with occasional gusts that seemed pretty strong.

We only got  rain here and most of the precipitation didn’t make it this far west but down in my mom’s area in Bensalem they had some snow.  She said none stuck to the ground but I did see a spotter report of .5 inches in Bensalem.  Her elevation is only like 50 feet or something like that..  There are some parts of  Bensalem that are a bit higher.

The big winners appear to be the higher elevations in north east PA.  I saw a few places with reports of over a foot of snow.  The highest total I saw was 17 inches in Freeland, Pa

This would have been a pretty good setup for snow during the winter.  lets hope that we have more like it!  Now the storm is pretty wound up just north of new england.

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An October coastal storm system is developing off the mid atlantic coast.  It started yesterday with an area of rain developing and persisting through the night here in central Pa.  This would have been a nice situation for a little snow here in January.  Right now and yesterday during the afternoon the temperature held in the low 40’s

Now in the Poconos and higher elevations of northern Pa.  I wish I still had my place up near Hazleton and would be going up there.  With an elevation of 1600 feet or so and the fact that they always tended to get more snow than the surrounding areas I bet it would be a nice late fall snowfall.

It should be a cool blustery day later as the wind picks up with highs in the 40’s.

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It’s always a sign of winter coming when the leaves are turning but It’s even more exciting when the NWS is starting to talk about lake effect snow.  State college is saying temperatures should support lake effect snow into tuesday after the arctic from moves through.

I’m not looking forward to the rain but arctic fronts can be fun.

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After the tropics got fairly quiet we now have Tropical Storm Marco in the Gulf of Mexico.  It’s not that strong but very interesting still.  It’s tiny.  The smallest storm I remember seeing and they’re saying tropical storm force winds only extend out 10 miles from the center.

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Hurricane Ike which was only a category 2 storm made landfall in Texas and moved  north through the Ohio valley yesterday proves that the rating doesn’t tell the whole story.  They’re saying it caused 30 billion dollars n damage and has caused at least 30 fatalities.

From what I’ve read it brought  in a  pretty high storm surge over a large area.  What really made this storm was the size of it I think.  Instead of getting stronger winds it expanded in size after hitting Cuba and looked like at one point it was affecting almost the entire Gulf of Mexico

Even after landfall it’s fast speed and taking a while to wind down brought strong winds all the way into the Great lakes states as it merged with a cold front.  It was an amazing storm to watch.

I think a lesson to learn from this storm is that it’s probably not a good idea to build on barrier islands but we’ll never learn that.  I really would never want to have my permanent house on one of these types of islands.

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Hurricane Ike has maximum sustained winds near 100 miles per hour right now but the real story is it’s size.  It’s a big storm with hurricane force winds extending up to 115 miles from the center.   Tropical storm force winds extend up to 255 miles from the center.

The minimum pressure (945 millibars) is borderline low enough to support a category 4 storm but I imagine the size of the whole storm is keeping the gradient from being tight enough to cause the winds.

Another interesting storm for this year.

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That was a pretty good line of storms for this time in the day and year.  I don’t think it approached severe criteria in my back yard but still we had a nice very heavy wind driven rain.  It got as dark as it would be about 8:30 pm as the storms moved in.  Just before the rain started I noticed low level clouds racing across the sky from west to east.  The line heald together as it crossed the river better than any I remember of this season too.  We even had lots of lightning.

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Today is going to be a good day. 7:40 in the morning and there appears to be some pretty strong thunderstorms moving towards us.  Not bad for September.  The other nice thing about these storms is it seems like a pretty solid area of storms so I don’t expect to be just missed by them like my area was all summer.

Some counties west of here have already had severe thunderstorm warnings due to the storms.  Radar was saying they were capable of producing quarter sized hail.

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Tropical storm Hanna moved into the Carolinas last night and north, then northeast through Virginia and is now off the coast.  It dumped heavy rains in some areas and in my back yard we received heavier rainfall than I had expected.  I figure that was going to happen when I saw the radar this morning and felt the  humidity.  Dew point of 72 or 73 today made it feel like summer and not September.

My Davis vantage pro2 recorded 2.19 inches today.  I noticed that Lancaster county’s stormnet website shows most areas getting 2 to almost 5 inches of rain.  So much for me not having to cut the grass anymore this year.. It’s been so dry it hasn’t grown.

It’s been breezy since about 2 but the wind hasn’t been strong.  State college dropped the wind advisory too.   I haven’t heard of any damage or flooding really either.

This situation could have been worse I think if the moisture from Gustav had combined with the moisture from  Hanna.

In the Atlantic Hurricane Ike is back up to 135 miles per hour making it a category four.  This one will be a fun storm to track.

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Tropical storm Hanna is approaching the East coast of the United states now with maximum sustained winds near 70 mph.  It seems like there is a lot more convection today than there was yesterday but still not around the center.  The minimum pressure is 980 millibars which seems a bit low to not be a hurricane but that depends on other factors too.

It will make landfall in the Carolinas and move up the east coast and turn northeast.  Hopefully some time in my life time I will have the opportunity to experience a tropical storm or hurricane from the coast.

It would be really fun to be on the outer banks this weekend.  I am really hoping we don’t get too much rain here though.  I want to do other things this weekend.  On the plus side we do need the rain and the storm will be moving pretty fast.

Hurricane Ike is still going strong although it has weakened somewhat.  It’s still a category three storm and looks like it may strengthen a bit.  The track appears to want to brush south Florida but that’s still five days from now.

Tropical storm Josephine has really weakened and there doesn’t seem to be much convection left that that storm.  Josephine is forecast to weaken and turn towards the northwest over the next few days.

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