TimB

Looks like 70 will have to wait, at least officially at KPIT. KAGC and many other sites in western PA hit 70 yesterday. We do have a solid shot at a daily record warm low depending on where we stand at 11:59 this evening. I’d be remiss not to include this...

Also this morning’s low of 45 officially ends the streak of days with a low temperature of 37 or lower at 101 days (3rd all time).

Definitely hail on the 1993 occasion. High of 86, low of 65 with 1.86” of rain.

You look familiar, do I know you from somewhere? Oh right, we’ve become quite well acquainted with this pattern over the past several years.

This is entirely accurate, for whatever reason. This may be anecdotal or empirical, but having lived nearly my entire life (aside from a few years out west) in either the Ohio Valley or Upper Midwest - yes, I consider Pittsburgh the Ohio Valley because it technically is - it seems like when we’re talking about the first time in a calendar year to hit a temperature milestone (50, 60, 70, 80), especially in a pattern flip from cold to warm, a large number of those have occurred on days when temperatures outperformed most to all forecasts and model guidance.

Ah yes, this one. Maybe the 0z run will continue to show this Day 14 storm. Or maybe the 0z run will have us at 75 and sunny that day. Both are (equally?) possible. That said, the Para does have extreme anomalous cold in the same timeframe, just without the storm. We’ll find out soon. Edit: all runs of today’s GFS and Para are not our friend on this. Extrapolating the Euro, it still seems possible. Even that seems questionable. But I think a snowfall that week is probably more likely than 75 and sunny at this point. Perhaps we’ll even see both with this tug of war between warm and cold. Despite this waffling of the models, NWS CPC has below normal temps for all but the far southeast US and above normal precip for the east in the 8-14 day range. Doesn’t look like they’re putting much confidence in it either though. I’ll bet we run a couple degrees either above or below average for the 3/15-3/21 period, with an inch or two of wet snow somewhere in there to pad the stats.

“At this range”... a D14 storm could probably have a bullseye over Des Moines or Charlotte or anywhere in between and have a fairly equal likelihood of bringing “the big one” to PA.

Meh. We have 7 warm months after March before it gets cold again (maybe 8, depending on what November does - and yes, I would say that April and October are warm months - though I’m open to differences in opinion on that). That’s plenty for me. Also, I’ll take snow any day and month of the year we can get it, even if that means recording a trace in May like last year. Winter doesn’t last forever, but summer always seems to drag on forever. Maybe because it actually has the past several years - September has been a summer month every year in recent memory and you could say the same for May if you throw out the first half of the month last year.

I think a warm up next week is a fair compromise if we get the cold, stormy pattern the following week. Flow looks too zonal at that point though, so not counting on much.

I would argue that understanding the difference between a watch, warning, and advisory is a much more basic level of understanding meteorology than knowing the meaning of terms frequently used in area forecast discussions or being able to read maps generated by a weather model, and that in general, it’s probably necessary and not hard at all for any member of the general public to understand the difference between the three. Instead of dumbing the message down to suit the public, maybe expect that people educate themselves on what three very basic terms mean.

Some bonus snow flurries this afternoon - even if it’s a trace, “days it snowed” is now winning 71-53 against “days it didn’t snow” since Nov. 1.

Admittedly, I’m looking at this through the clouded lens of being on the cusp of turning a good-to-great winter into a truly memorable winter but spring had to go and show up early, and that’s a much better position to be in than last year, when winter blasted through the door here in early November, pulled a disappearing act for six months and came back for the first half of May when it was too late.

I can only speak from my own experiences (I’m 36 and not a grandpa, lol, and I do follow the weather closely) and I agree that the five cities I named all have their own unique climate, though Columbus and Indy are certainly less influenced by the lakes than the other three. I’d be hard pressed to name a winter where it hasn’t been that way, outside of the late 1970s, which I didn’t get to experience. I can remember playing outside as a kid on numerous 65-70 degree January and February days in the ‘90s. My argument here boils down to my opinion that the core of winter is still there, but the “shoulder seasons”, if you will, (somewhat Nov/early Dec, but especially late Feb/early Mar) are getting a lot less likely to have cold and snow than they used to be. I’m not comparing them to, nor do I expect them to be like, mid-January, I’m comparing them to late February in the past. Of course it’s going to be warmer on average the last week of February than the third week of January. But at least in Pittsburgh, the last week of February has been an extension of spring for 6 years in a row now. I realize 6 years isn’t enough to draw any definitive conclusions, but it’s at least enough to make you say “hmm.” And when it’s not just a momentary warm spell, but a pattern that occurs year after year after year, you start to wonder if maybe this is related to climate and not weather.

Well that, but that signal had been consistent for several runs and has faded a bit with all of today’s runs. And of course, the usual disclaimer of “it’s the GFS” holds true here. I’ll wait and see what the Euro thinks when next weekend is in its run, it’s been making the GFS look like a kindergarten project lately at the 7-10 day range, picking up on both the general pattern and the magnitude of said pattern much sooner (i.e., last week’s warmth, the colder period this week). But the messaging the NWS is putting out seems to lean towards the GFS when the models disagree - it’s almost like someone in charge said “hey, when these models disagree, you should lean towards the GFS unless and until it comes in line with the Euro. You work for our country and should give preference to products bought and paid for by our country.” (I may be way off base, but it’s a theory I have.) Edit: now that the models diverge in the 7-10 day range (Euro gives us a high of 68 on Friday the 12th, GFS gives us 42), we’ll see how this plays out in real time.

I suppose it does, besides, the GFS and Para don’t seem to want to keep either warm or cold air in place for long in the extended. March doesn’t look excessively warm like it did yesterday.

Small victories are great, but I still feel like we need a massive victory to make up for our massive defeat last winter. In fairness, I think I worked out that the 1991-2020 snowfall averages at PIT are still going to be an inch or two higher than the 1981-2010 averages.

I can’t dispute that it was a good winter. But in thinking about other good winters in Pittsburgh’s history, it’s a garden-variety good winter, a once every 5-7 years type of deal. If we get less than an inch of additional snow the rest of the way (which I’d say is at least a 50/50 bet), it puts us just outside the top 20 all time. I’m not saying we need record-breaking snow and cold, but a top 10 or top 15 winter of all time is what I would describe as “phenomenal.” I guess it depends on how you view other factors, like number of significant snowstorms, what one personally defines to be a “significant snowstorm”, length of time with a snowpack, white Christmas, how early or late the winter went, etc. If these factors are even more important than the actual final total, I can see how this would be a “phenomenal” winter. So it’s not disappointing in that sense, it’s more that it had the potential to be even more special if the back end hadn’t been so crappy.

Indeed, that is the latest in the KPIT era. There are a couple April days in the very early 1900s that recorded 11+ inches. I guess we did break a few daily snowfall records this winter, when a moderate accumulation happened to line up with a date that had a low-hanging fruit kind of record (I’m thinking Christmas in particular). And I guess we can’t join March of 1903, 1927, and 1946 in infamy as the only ones without measurable snow, since KPIT managed to pick up 0.1” yesterday.

My memory seems to be telling me that was one of those long-duration events that melted almost as it fell, was an advisory rather than a warning, and was little more than a number in the record books. I seem to recall driving the turnpike and being able to safely go 70 the whole way. I could be wrong.

I do agree that this winter has checked most of the boxes. But I’m tired of winter coming to an abrupt end before February is over, as it nearly always seems to in recent years. Is it too much to ask for 2-3” of snow in a month (March) that averages 7.4”? I’m not even asking for half of the average, haha.

Disclaimer: Not from or currently living in this region, but lived in WI for several years including the record snow winter of 2007-08 in Madison (which was awesome! Sign me up for a winter like that in Pittsburgh!). That said, I also find this hobby stressful and emotionally draining, and anxiety inducing, so I understand the grousing over the lack of a true winter, which is unfortunately becoming more and more common in areas on the fringe of the true northern US like Chicago, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Indy, even Detroit, etc. in recent years. We do need everything to go right to get a good snowstorm or polar vortex in these parts. This was largely a good winter here too (a foot above normal snowfall, the whitest Christmas ever recorded here, close to normal temps, almost a month of snow cover which is rare here, our second longest stretch to start a year without hitting 50 degrees - we finally did on 2/24). The models often had us getting a nice cold snap in February, much like the Midwest did. The models lied. February’s average here was 3.5 degrees below normal, but we didn’t have the subzero cold I was hoping for. I know our normal high on 2/28 is 42 but I wasn’t ready for winter to end just yet - March here averages 7” of snow and typically has some cold stretches. An abrupt end to winter on 2/24 was not what I had in mind, and a March that likely will feature below average snowfall here, if we see anything more than a trace at all). We suffered through a 76 degree day in mid-November and still had to deal with a flip to spring before the calendar even flipped to March. I miss when March was marginally a winter month. I miss when November was marginally a winter month. I’m sure Chicagoans do too. Don’t judge snow and cold lovers for getting upset at how short winters are these days. Some of us do get quite grouchy when the seasons aren’t the way we like them, even though we know at the heart of it there’s really nothing we can do about it, outside of moving to a colder climate (which due to the pandemic has never been easier than it is now for any of us that have a job that can be done from anywhere, like myself. Almost considering moving back to the Upper Midwest for the weather alone).

From a PIT person, the GFS and Euro spent a lot of time teasing us with temps in the double digits below zero range on various days for the second and third week of February, sometimes as low as -19, usually about a week out, and were often in agreement on such barely-precedented cold. The lowest temperature we recorded in February was +2, and on many of those days our lows were closer to 20.

CPC 6-10 and 8-14 day outlooks for that event both had massive areas of 80 and 90 percent probabilities of above normal most days, so that’s a good reason not to even consider it.

After reminding myself how ridiculous that March was, I’m going to bet against an 11 day stretch with highs of 72, 75, 74, 70, 77, 72, 75, 80, 77, 81, and 81 happening this March, so I don’t see 12 above average happening. That said... 2012: 2021: Same pattern, but I’m just going to take a wild guess that it’s not going to be the same magnitude.

I think this cold-ish (i.e., seasonable for early March) start to the month prevents us from seriously challenging 2012. But I’m going with 5+ degrees above normal and less than 3” of snow for the month.