A number of folks have asked what the "strange lights" were last night in and around the Philadelphia area. Here is a photo submitted to our Photo Gallery by Leslie from Royersburg, PA:

Leslie says: "They were mainly facing east - towards Philly. They diminished as you moved away from the brighter Philly lights." (Interesting aside, Leslie was a client of our Forensics department in the past, and her association with AccuWeather caused her to donate these photos today. It all comes full-circle, man.)

Was it Aurora? No. While it does look like somewhat like aurora, it is in front of the clouds illuminated by the ambient light from Philly in the distance. Not to mention, aurora activity, shown in yellow on this map, was limited to the North Pole last night, according to NOAA.

Was it Light Pillars? Yes. There is an in-depth explanation of them on the Atmospheric Optics site. While that page doesn't show the "suspended pillars" as we do here, they do have a photo of that. (You think that's weird, check this out).

The lights are from the ground, streetlights or other industrial lighting that was not shielded properly (althougt it's more efficient to reflect light to the ground, light makers are sometimes too lazy to do this). They are "suspended" because there was only a thin layer of ice crystals (see below for more on that).

It's nice to think that this was something heretofore unseen in our atmosphere (or a returning UFO!), but it just wasn't the case this time. Atmospheric Optics is the first place I look when I see something like this. They've truly seen it all.

Thanks to AccuWeather meteorologists Mike Sager, Jim Andrews and Lisa Beightol (who also writes our Astronomy blog) for their help in quickly diagnosing the event. By the way, we don't entirely agree with the article explaining the event written by an AccuWeather meteorologist at WPVI (thanks to our Astronomy blogger for the tip), where he says that the lights were "thin columns of snowflakes falling out of the clouds." I think what we're looking at here was simply a layer of ice crystals in the atmosphere (if you take the photo above and "turn it downwards" in your mind, you can imagine the pillars lining up to show the layer of ice crystals more obviously.

According to that article, the lights were also spotted in New Jersey. Maryland Weather Blogger Frank Roylance has also listed Light Pillars as an explanation.

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I just passed an AccuWeather forecaster in the hall who said "You know we think there could be 12-18 inches of snow in the Laurel Highlands by the weekend!" I was admittedly surprised by this prediction, but our maps usually low-ball lake-effect and clipper snow events, especially in the high elevations. Here's our official map through Friday, which includes both lake-effect snow and snow from the Clipper system moving through the area:

TALK ABOUT THIS STORM ON OUR FORUMS!

(See Brett Anderson's Blog (PREMIUM | PRO for the Canadian version).

So, based on the map and his comments, maybe we're starting to be more receptive to predicting higher amounts, starting with the local area that we have knowledge of, here in Pennsylvania. We're admitting the 12 on the map above, and (internally) guessing up to 18 inches in the Laurel Highlands area (the highest elevations of southwest PA, see this official map). Here's the Hi-Res WRF Forecast Model [JessePedia] from our Pro site, which is not that much different than our map. All this aligning makes me think that the forecast confidence is high for heavy snow at high elevations in PA by Friday night.

(SEE THE FORUMS FOR A NORTHEAST MAP)

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Record low temperatures were tied or set across the Southeast today (and it wasn't that warm up here in the Northeast either!) Fox News reports on-air that the following records were set:

Bristol, NT: 17*
Charlotte, NC: 18
Augusta, GA: 22
Montgomery, AL: 23
Tallahassee, FL: 29

*Tie

Frank Strait's Blog (PREMIUM | PRO) has a more comprehensive list of Southeast Records.

TEMPERATURES @ 7 AM

I also see that Grandfather Mountain, NC hit 9 degrees this morning, while Mount Mitchell dipped to 5.5 above zero, or actually 4 according to this NWS report. Mount Leconte in Tennessee was the winner though, with only 3 degrees.

In the Northeast, Saranac Lake, NY (a typical ice box) dipped to 1 degree, we had 8 at Bradford, just up the road from State College, Pennsylvania, home of AccuWeather HQ [Google Map], and I had 13 degrees at my house. Mount Washington, NH (another typically cold location) was well below zero, and is struggling to get above 0 as we speak.

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Below, a list of snow totals, up to 31 inches. But first, a couple blog readers left some enlightening Comments at the bottom of yesterday's blog entry. Among them, the fact that there had been flurries in Eastern North Carolina (something the NWS wrote a statement about), and Blog Reader Joe pointed out that there was "Lake Champlain-Effect Snow" in Vermont, something the NWS was forced to issue a Winter Weather Advisory for. Here's a radar image showing the snow coming off the lake:

NOTE: Sorry for my delay in updating the snow list, I was on eBay again last night, jettisoning some webcams.

DOWNLOAD WITHOUT ANNOTATION

Blog reader Zandt points out a PDF containing former research on Lake-Champlain-Effect. That, of course, brings up the question of whether there could be lake-effect from other lakes, or even bay-effect or ocean-effect snow? The answer, in short, is yes. There isn't anything special about the Great Lakes - except they are large. With sufficient warmth of water, smaller areas can have the same effect. You can read the blog entry I wrote about X-Effect-Snow here.

Here are the amounts that I researched and posted to my blog this morning. These come from NWS reports and our SnowMatrix - if you have a total not entered into either, hit the SnowMatrix. We also got these pics from an AccuWeather.com Forums user who eyewitnessed the 30" at Snowshoe, West Virginia:

And one from Michigan and New York State. If you have pictures, upload them to the AccuWeather.com Photo Gallery.

AMOUNTS OVER 15 INCHES:

Elliocottville, NY: 31.0" (SnowMatrix)
South Dayton, NY: 30.0"
Snowshoe, WV: 30.0" (SnowShoeMtn.com)
West Leyden, NY: 28.0"
Ellicottville, NY: 28.0"
Ashville, NY: 25.0"
Sinclairville, NY: 22.0"
Stockton, NY: 20.0"
Napoli, NY: 17.0"
Quinwood, WV: 17.0"

HIGHEST AMOUNTS PER STATE:

Elliocottville, NY: 31.0" (SnowMatrix)
Snowshoe, WV: 30.0" (SnowShoeMtn.com)
Craigsville, WV: 14.0" (NWS)
Erie, PA: 11.0" (SnowMatrix)
Porter, IN: 10.0"
Farmington, PA: 8.4"
Pierpoint, OH: 8.0" (SnowMatrix)
Cuyahoga Falls, OH: 7.3"
Marquette, MI: 6.0"
Multiple Locations, NC: 5.0"
Tazewell, VA: 5.0"
Frostburg, MD: 2.1"

More lake-effect is on the way for the Northeast on Thursday and Friday:

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Some parts of New York state have picked up between 2 and 3 feet of snow already from this lake-effect event! Here are the latest amounts by state:

UPDATE: Check out the snow cover on the Ohio Visible satellte loop, you can see the "tracks" of the lake-effect bands, just like the high-res model showed on my blog yesterday. (Thanks for the note, Henry).

HIGHEST AMOUNTS PER STATE: UPDATED 11 AM*

West Leyden, NY: 28.0"
Erie, PA: 11.0" (SnowMatrix)
Porter, IN: 9.5"
Pierpoint, OH: 8.0" (SnowMatrix)
Cuyahoga Falls, OH: 7.3"
Friendsville, PA: 6.8"
Quinwood, WV: 10.0"
Marquette, MI: 6.0"
Multiple Locations, NC: 3.0"
Ceres, VA: 4.0"
Frostburg, MD: 2.1"

Fall Snow in Western New York - Nov. 17, 2008 - Carl Cartright shovels snow to make way for the mail carrier at his home near South Dayton, N.Y., Monday, Nov. 17, 2008.Twenty inches of snow piled up in South Dayton,.downwind from Lake Erie in western New York. (AP Photo/ Doug Benz)

P.S.: I guess I should have pointed out yesterday that you can access the awesome high-res WRF snow maps on our Pro Site (try a 30-day free trial today!)

Here is our forecast for additional snowfall today:

*This list was originally published below:

Here are a couple of lists of amounts that I've researched. If you find higher amounts reported by the NWS, leave me a Comment below. If you have measured snow and haven't reported it yet, enter your report on the the SnowMatrix. I will be updating these throughout the day.

AMOUNTS OVER 16 INCHES:

West Leyden, NY: 28.0"
Ellicottville, NY: 28.0"
Ashville, NY: 25.0"
Stockton, NY: 20.0"
Napoli, NY: 17.0"

LOCATIONS EXCEEDED AND REMOVED FROM ABOVE STATE LIST:

Quinwood, WV: 6.5"
New Castle, VA: 3.0"
Linville, NC: 2.9"

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