TimB

Very useful information, I was not aware. Thank you for this. I’m glad to see our somewhat archaic system is being improved. Not sure I’m all in on the 35 day range thing, but to each his own.

Exactly. It’s not at all unusual to see snowstorms turn to crap in these parts, but it’s upsetting when it happens this fast and this close to the event.

ZL was observed at Pgh International at 6am.

True. It’s too early in the morning. The models made a massive error in the track of the storm just 48 hours out. Still not something I feel mets should face one bit of “scrutiny” for.

TWC has me at plain rain as early as 10pm.

I just don’t know about mets getting any scrutiny*, it was the models that didn’t get a handle on what was happening with this storm and how much warm air it would pull into our area like storms always do, until it was way too late and everyone already had their hopes up for a good snow event. Do we need to maybe start partially privately funding the GFS and using Russian and Chinese satellite data like the Euro does, and ditch the strictly American idea that anything Russian or Chinese is bad and shouldn’t be used by an American agency like the NWS? Probably, but the Euro and pretty much every model on the planet also had issues with this storm and is showing a far different solution for the Thursday storm from what any of the other models are. *Except for the NWS’s tendency to hold the line on their forecasts for a lot longer than they should, and not backing down on snow totals until well after the models paint a clear picture of what’s going to happen. But as I theorized before, even that may not be the mets’ fault. I still think it’s not that far-fetched, maybe even likely, that in a government agency like the NWS, there’s some sort of bureaucratic nonsense involved, like possibly audits of individual NWS offices by the higher ups, where they are evaluated on some sort of performance rubric that might include things like “how many times did you issue a warning only to later downgrade it to an advisory?” And the higher ups/people doing the evaluating may not know or care that this area is harder than average to forecast. Presumably most of us have had performance evaluations at work and know how arbitrary they can be. If NWS offices get reprimanded by the higher ups for such trivial things as bruising someone’s ego by pointing out an inaccurate comment on what areas will be affected by a hurricane, it’s not far-fetched at all to think they can get reprimanded for issuing too many warnings that turned into advisories. Tl;dr: I’m defending mets here, the models blew it this time.

In short, the Euro gives us the temperature profile we need for the Thursday storm. Other models give us the same garbage as today’s storm, albeit with a little more snow.

Also, the early look at the Thursday system on the 0z NAM doesn’t look like it’s going to be a winner.

I don’t know where any weather app or otherwise is getting the idea that this will be all snow anywhere in Allegheny County. With that being said, this is not met bashing in the slightest. Many of us have performance reviews in our jobs, and it’s certainly the case that in a government-run bureaucracy like NOAA, there would have to be some level of performance accountability when it comes to the NWS. Not that they can’t get a forecast wrong, as surely it’s obvious that there is a lot more uncertainty in what they do for a living than what most of the rest of us do. But maybe one of the performance indicators is “how many times did X forecast office issue a warning and have to downgrade it to an advisory (or vice versa)?” If you can keep it a warning, even if it’s marginal, then it keeps your office from getting dinged when it gets audited by the higher ups, who don’t necessarily care that there is way more forecast uncertainty in a place like Pittsburgh than there is in, say, Phoenix. After all, a NWS forecast office did once get reprimanded for something as arbitrary as correcting erroneous information provided by a political figure on the track and impact of a hurricane.

Instead, they’ve left the 3-6” intact and still 0.1-0.2 of ice, despite many model runs to the contrary between the initial warning and the recent update.

No former name on here, actually. Just thinking about warning criteria, and usually when 2” of snow and 0.1-0.2” of ice are expected, an advisory is issued. Does already having issued a warning change that thought process?

Aren’t the WSW criteria for ice 1/4” or more? Do we legitimately think we get there?

So at what point does the NWS downgrade our warning to an advisory? 4 hrs after precip onset?

I was this kid too. Go to bed with them predicting 6-8 inches of snow, thinking school would be closed and then waking up to rain and disappointment.

The Thursday system still looks better for snow. GFS wants to give us 5” and half an inch of ice still and drag the low right across our area. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Wait, they issued a graphic at 1:23 and another less than a half hour later?

That cutoff would give us a pretty nice “official” total, though the vast majority of folks would see far less than what goes into the record books. The NWS trended amounts down as they should have, but non-weather enthusiasts who only use things like TWC to know what the weather will be like are being misled to believe they’ll get 6-12” of all snow (up from an earlier forecast of 4-8), even in places like the South Hills.

I don’t want trees snapping and power outages, lol. Edit: I guess power outages would give me a day off of work, but pretty sure that’s just a waste of a day of leave.

Even falling onto cold ground/snow after a week plus of being below freezing at the sfc?

Aside from the NAM, most models do keep the vast majority of precip frozen (to the extent that freezing rain is “frozen”). But the ice storm threat is increasing. What product will the NWS issue? I would think a warning rather than an advisory for 2-6” of snow SE to NW and a much higher risk of 0.25” ice.

Or the GFS could push the low back through Indy like it did yesterday, or it could keep shifting east. Way too many options.

GFS keeps trending East with the later system, rams the low directly through our area. Could be interesting.

That was a memorable cold snap. I guess my memory immediately went to the 10+ inches we received in late March that melted almost as quickly as it fell, and yes, the snow in April, which inflated our totals a little. That was one of the longest cold snaps in recent memory, and I remember shoveling snow in brutal cold.

I agree. ‘17-18 comes to mind for a season with a high total but wasn’t a real winter.

Well the 12z HRRR certainly didn’t go in our favor either... NWS will keep the watch intact, as is, until they issue an advisory this afternoon for 2-4” of snow and up to 0.1” of ice.