jwilson

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.

Thanks for all your work, ClimateChanger. Nice to see all that information accounted for. I kind of figured improvements in data collection and analysis would help account for apparent oddities in climate measurables. I know the NWS has their protocol and reasons for messaging a certain way, but I also think they should stay away from certain verbiage in long-term forecasting. Especially given the local microclimatolgy that seems to moderate with time. Geographically speaking, we don't really do extremes here.

I'm going to Vegas in July so this should be a good practice run.

Haven't lived in Pittsburgh forever, but for as long as I've been here, June has never felt appreciably "hot." Many times I've noticed it's relatively cool for the transition to summer. Either this portends a hot summer, as many predicted, or we even it out later with a cooling off during the summer spike. Anyone aware of how the wildfires factor in, if they are as relevant compared to last year?

1 for 6 on severe threats thus far. Aside from the other night when it was raining ice cubes, not much to speak of during these events, locally. Mostly outflow winds. There was definitely a tornado in eastern Ohio last night, however. Evident on radar and supposedly there was a brief video.

Tornado Watch to our south. I'm skeptical of anything that severe tonight, but something to keep an eye on if you're out or around the area.

Looks like Ohio is this spring's Tornado Alley. I feel like we tend to get our worst severe weather when it's not forecasted, so maybe this will bust. Something to keep an eye on, however, as TimB noted it's been a decade since we've had a "Moderate" risk locally.

Vernal equinox being tomorrow night, winter will "officially" close.

Interesting to see how next week goes in terms of temps. Strong divergence between Euro and GFS. Former wants us back into the 60s by Tuesday while the GFS likes a more extended period of cooler weather. Looks like March 18th our average highs hit 50 and then 60 by April 9th. Sorry, no snow to speak of so for now the talk is mostly boring unless we can pop some T-storms again.

I think we had more storms over the last couple days than we did all of last summer.

Not much winter to forecast. The ensembles all show a warmer pattern after this coming weekend when we get a cold shot, but it looks like any snow talks are on hold for a while. The GEFS is the exception for now which shows a little possible something on March 2nd when we get a transient ridge in a near ideal position. But it is on its own. The EPS and GEPS are both showing a strong warm look, nearly full latitude ridge at that time. I guess if you roll the pattern forward, mid-March is a possibility for something? Hard to get overly excited at this point. March is always a wild card, of course, but for me it's something historical like 1993 or let's just move on to spring. Five-and-dimes aren't as effective or interesting after February. In December? Sure.

I drove through that death band in the city. 279 from the north was completely covered and I passed one vehicle that had clearly spun around. It was snowing so hard snow was accumulating on my hood while I was driving. Massive dinner plate flakes. Once I got beyond the Liberty tunnel you could see the subsidence. Much worse dendrite growth and 19 in the South Hills was mostly just wet, excepting a few spots. The snow started getting a bit heavier in Bethel beyond Mt. Lebo.

NWS pretty bullish on their call. There is going to be a narrow band of winners somewhere between Allegheny and Morgantown. Problem is if you're outside that maxima band, you're probably dealing with subsidence and bad dendrite growth. Pretty much all the latest mesos keep that band in Greene and Washington counties. It will be interesting to nowcast that and see where it falls. I thought the soundings weren't that great looking into Allegheny even yesterday in terms of maximizing potential, but I don't know how reliable those are from the mesos.

On all the ensembles, there's another Omega block look setting up for next weekend, except with the ridge potentially positioned further west. I had highlighted this period in the past because the ensembles had pretty classic East Coast snowstorm looks before. Now that look is not at all the same, but it could still setup into something interesting. The operationals show nothing but that's irrelevant right now. Remember that the last time that omega block happened, we had a pretty major storm, it just missed us by a few hundred miles and buried other places in feet of snow. It's quite possible this is our last chance before March torches, so I'm going to enjoy tracking this even if it amounts to nothing.