jwilson

Probability favors less than 30" on the season. We've had a fair start for December purposes. Below the 30-year average of 7.8" in the month, but the best December of the last four. Seems we've paid a bit for that epic 2020 December. That said, if you add up the last five Decembers, we still average around that 7" mark. Quote: "That's how averages work!" lol. The good news in the long-term is, at least for now, we're not seeing a true blow torch pattern. Odds are it shows up eventually, but we at least have cold coming in-and-out. We'll moderate between Christmas and New Years, then afterwards another -EPO reinforcement sets up more cold air in the contiguous U.S. Most of the teleconnections look favorable around early January, too. MJO going into Phase 7, potentially. -NAO and -AO. Ridging out west and a trough setup over the East. About all you can ask for in any given pattern. We'll work out the discrete threats down the road.

Nice dinner-plate flakes under this area of convergence. Not sticking to the concrete, but nice to behold while it falls. If only we could get this for hours on end.

Doesn't look like much right now for AGH. Very similar to the setup last week with the lake effect machine cranking back up. GFS is the most robust, but even as depicted, it's still warm at the surface when the "snow" begins. Early guess is another 0-2" event for Western PA areas minus the ridges and Erie.

Looks like we'll have a cold source for the first week of December, at least. Not sure about discrete threats. One around Thanksgiving is the most obvious. This early in the season could be more about lake effect as opposed to synoptic snows, however, and it might be a "cold and dry" environment after that one. I'm skeptical the cold lasts any longer than that - rest of December is more likely to be normal or above, IMHO. But in the long range that can always change, of course.

I believe it was 2010 when we had a rather warm November, and then as soon as December hit, it felt like winter had arrived. I don't know if we're in store for a repeat of that pattern, which ended up being a strong La Nina episode following an El Nino. Right now we're in a very mild negative period which is technically neutral (-0.2), but a La Nina of the weaker type is slightly favored. This could end up being a net-neutral winter, however. Looking back for any kind of correlation, I found 10 net neutral winters since 1990. The average snowfall over those neutral periods was 44.8, which is slightly above our 30-year average. Half of the ten were below 30" of snow while the other half were above 50" of snow. Kind of an interesting dynamic there. Three were above 60" (1993, 1994, and 2014). Of those neutrals, only three followed an El Nino. Two of those three were 1993 and 2004, with 72.1" and 54.2" of snow, respectively. The third was 2020 with 22.4" of snow. If it ends up being a true weak La Nina, well, the snowfall history isn't quite as favorable, but it is a smaller sample size, too. We've only had five La Ninas that finished above a -1.0 threshold. None of those five involved snowfall higher than our 30-year average, and only one was right around the number (2009 with 41" of snow total). The three were in the 30s, which wouldn't be bad given our recent history, but the last was 2023 and that was a paltry year for snow, still fresh in our minds (17.6"). To be clear, I don't know if this means anything, but it's interesting to check the data and try to include that history into a prediction for the winter. We fully expect a warm winter, in general, so predicting under the average is probably a safer bet, regardless.

There was a funnel report in Venango county yesterday, but no idea if it ever condensated to the ground. The velocity couplet on radar was pretty distinct. If nothing touched down, I'd be kind of shocked. It was long-lived, too. We had a transformer blow a few blocks away. Lightning strike, not a lot of wind. Lost power for a minute or two.

Things appear to be trending eastward, so it's looking like an inch might be the high-end for Allegheny county. Probably best to avoid flooding concerns.

In the South Hills, we're the "victims" of another stabilizing outflow boundary. I've seen this with some regularity. It cools and flattens the air, and we end up with a tiny bit of wind but no storms. Collapses any inflow possibility. I guess we'll see if the line coming through later can reignite the atmosphere. Sorry for those of you north of the city that always seem to deal with these.

Certainly clashes with their hot August prediction. Would have to mean the latter half of the month is much warmer.

Too much cloud cover earlier meant the more favorable areas for development were further to the East, I think. Then when convection fired there, it sort of sucked all the energy out of our area and resulted in diverging/sinking air over us, which caps potential development. This is a pretty familiar course of events. Our hyped days are often undone by clouds or adjacent areas having better conditions and we get dry air otherwise.

Tomorrow a good chase day, then. Anyone chase around Pittsburgh? I imagine it's ... not fun.

Storm had mostly weakened by the time it hit here, nothing but a bit of wind and heavy rain. Looks like it reorganized to the East.

It will be interesting to see if the heat comes back, perhaps even worse, in July or August. The high temp outlooks in the near future seem to have shifted to the southeast, and there's no more sudden onset of the heatwave. There's some signs in the further long range (10 days), but I don't trust those at this lead time.

I know the air temps haven't hit particularly notable highs, but it definitely feels disgusting outside. I struggled to hit 3 miles and felt like I was dying. This is good watermelon weather.

Had a lightning strike right outside my window, but other than that not much in terms of thunder-weather. It was plenty humid today, though.