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Pittsburgh PA Winter 2016-2017


north pgh

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Seems like this is the storm more likely to bring in the cold air, at least a wave of it, but there's none to be seen ahead of time.  We're going to be near or above 60 the next three days with a meager cool-down for Monday.  I just don't see this one.  Mountain areas might get a thick pasting of the white stuff, but this looks like rain everywhere else.

Hard to get excited for anything right now when I can break out my shorts again.  I know some people like all-year warmth, but I just ... don't.  The cold months help me better appreciate the warm months, plus I love snow, and you can't get any with a Bermuda high spreading it's silly tropical weather at 40N.

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Now the NWS seems to be saying there might be a chance of frozen precip Monday night/Tuesday in their morning discussion.  It's got my interest level up.  I don't know though with the 540 line clear out in Michigan.  It does look like the cold will come back in a day earlier now on the 26th.

I had some ice on the deck this morning when the rain started.  It got well below freezing at 27, then rose to 32 when the precip began.

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On 1/19/2017 at 1:36 AM, blackngoldrules said:

Probably more like 20 years. We probably haven't seen a track like that here since 1994. Just goes to show how many things have to go right for us to get a good snowstorm in this area. That's why we see years and years of misses here. 

One of the analogs for this storm is 1994.

post-28288-1484910266_thumb.jpg

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1 hour ago, colonel717 said:

Unfortunately, any track it takes will not be cold enough for us for snow. 

Yeah, I'm hoping the bad track is what verifies. If I end up looking at the surface map Monday and see a sub 990 low in perfect position with rain pouring I'll probably get much more agitated than one ever should over whats falling from the sky!

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We probably are going to have to hope for some PV help for later in Feb, but from Mike's tweet it looks like that may not be an entirely absurd hope, just a matter of what effects it will  have for our little corner of the world.

Looks like the +PNA is going to be relatively short lived as the ridge retrogrades, so if we get lucky I see things playing out like this, we get cold mid to late next week due to +PNA, it starts to relax into first week of Feb or so and we moderate some, then we see some effects from PV displacement that can buy us some more time thru hopefully mid to late Feb.

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Hopefully this is ok to post here, I'm looking for some traveling advice... While being laidoff for the winter I'm going to be doing a few days trips a week down to the Sharpsville area. This is in a big rig and the route we're running is 90-79-19-358-18. I know I'll be dealing with Lake effect  right down through Erie at least but how far down 79 and the rest of the route should I be expecting to deal with that? We do have the ability to push off some loads if the 90 is closed or its really bad  in general but not for days on end. Thanks.

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8 minutes ago, Polarbear said:

Hopefully this is ok to post here, I'm looking for some traveling advice... While being laidoff for the winter I'm going to be doing a few days trips a week down to the Sharpsville area. This is in a big rig and the route we're running is 90-79-19-358-18. I know I'll be dealing with Lake effect  right down through Erie at least but how far down 79 and the rest of the route should I be expecting to deal with that? We do have the ability to push off some loads if the 90 is closed or its really bad  in general but not for days on end. Thanks.

Not sure it this helps

http://mrcc.isws.illinois.edu/cliwatch/eNews/observer_201210_full.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowbelt

 

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49 minutes ago, CoraopolisWx said:

Hopefully if the NAM is still showing this tomorrow, then mabey it's starting to zero in on the dynamic cooling.

 

It's all we got, so I'll ride it to the end. Lol.

The NAM has fooled me too many times but at this point why not ride it. 

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Something interesting I saw over in the Philly subforum.

 

12 minutes ago, ChescoPaWxman said:

For your reading enjoyment From JB at WB this AM

"The tornadoes and severe weather in Mississippi are a sign that a front running impulse is coming out. That impulse is going to carve the path for this low to move along. The Euro wants it over Chesapeake bay for instance, and then the primary goes toward it. I think its likely to be off the Delmarva by tomorrow night, and that is where the big low winds up on Monday. Now consider this. Its so warm it cant get any warmer. What do I mean by that? Well all the warm air for the system is already on the playing field. Because winds are mainly west in the southern sector of the storm, there is no transport of warmer air into the center as it moves east. Instead the cooler air cmes flying in underneath and as the center moves further northeast, it starts drawing cooling are into it from the northeast . The front running system causing those tornadoes is HUGE in this for this should get off the mid atlantic coast tomorrow and when it does, establish the path for the primary center, after it moves up into WVA, to move along. The warm air that is around now has gone into developing the storm as heights fall over it, but there is no warm inflow. The air mass to the northeast is low level cold air, Its way the new HIRES NAM is cooling this so dramatically, its seeing all this and too little back in central Pa simply because of the ideas I have analogged this too ( 3 storms that were warm that turned into big interior snows as centers drew cold air in, and precip processes cooled the air, late March 1984, Dec 1992, late March 1984). The warm advection leads to strong upward motion. Saturated air that may be 38 degrees at NYC is lifted and that can cool quite a bit, Meanwhile he sounding turns Isothermal and a bunch of people start turning over to snow west of the track to the upper low. as soon as the warm advection cuts off, which should be Monday as all the cooling gets around it, a bunch of people start turning over to snow That is the key.

So what I do is figure out all the scenarios I see and weight them. Lets look here at State College. If I blend my 3 analogs it comes out to a foot. But suppose I look at modeling, take the average of the Canadian UKMET US models, ensembles and operational. I may have 10 samples I am looking at Now we got 15 with March 84 and Dec 1992 and 9 with the early 93 March storm. That is 39 for a total . the contribution from 7 models is only 7 So lets say there are 7 objective inputs adding up to 7 inches ( 1 each) and then my 3 analogs which tack on another 39 ( 15,15,9) . This gives me 10 tools totaling 46, which is an average of 4.6, hence the forecast of 3-6 put out a couple of days ago. NYC I said 1-3. This is not to get into a fight over either place Its to demonstrate a forecast method where you don't simply go into depression/elation cycles over model. The time to flip out is Tuesday morning if there is nothing on the ground , not over models. But if you can come up with storm typing, then as the storm gets closer, you can eliminate the options.

Forecasting is not putting out 10 different options before an event. If you change your forecast 9 times, then out of 10 samples you were wrong on 90% of them. And what's more you cant go back and claim a forecast was right. You can say, that idea was better, but I pulled it off the table.

I really think the answer to the forecast questions is not the models, but identifying EVERYTHING you can and then weighting it. The models are simply doing that. Their variance shows that obviously they disagree. So what is needed for the right answer. YOU! I don't care if you have a degree or not, if you love the weather and you love getting out there then you should put out your ideas. This is another libertarian rant against those that think its "irresponsible" for untrained guys to be posting forecasts. That is arrogant. I am suggesting a method that I use that you might want to try, sharing what I do. I am also suggesting that there is a philosophy that can make it easier not to swing all over the place when models do or do not go your way"

 

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GFS has consistently been showing a combo of lake effect and clippers in the middle and long range, starting at the end of the week.  I know some don't like the nuisance snows, but as we all know, these clippers have a tendency to overproduce every now and then.  So, after what seems like months of not having anything worthwhile to track, it is nice to see some light at the end of the tunnel.

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1 hour ago, Mailman said:

GFS has consistently been showing a combo of lake effect and clippers in the middle and long range, starting at the end of the week.  I know some don't like the nuisance snows, but as we all know, these clippers have a tendency to overproduce every now and then.  So, after what seems like months of not having anything worthwhile to track, it is nice to see some light at the end of the tunnel.

Give me clippers all day.  Atleast someones not getting 2ft while we get fringed...

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23 hours ago, colonel717 said:

Give me clippers all day.  Atleast someones not getting 2ft while we get fringed...

Meh. With clippers, the mountains and up north usually get more and we end up with an inch or two. Yeah, every once in a blue moon we may get an overperformer, but usually it's just a moisture starved system that give us nuisance amounts around here. I'll take the 60s we've had over that. That's just me though. We're all different.

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On 1/20/2017 at 3:05 PM, Polarbear said:

Hopefully this is ok to post here, I'm looking for some traveling advice... While being laidoff for the winter I'm going to be doing a few days trips a week down to the Sharpsville area. This is in a big rig and the route we're running is 90-79-19-358-18. I know I'll be dealing with Lake effect  right down through Erie at least but how far down 79 and the rest of the route should I be expecting to deal with that? We do have the ability to push off some loads if the 90 is closed or its really bad  in general but not for days on end. Thanks.

Typically once south of I-80 conditions generally improve dramatically heading South. The end of this week looks like we start to see a lot of clippers and NW flow, so there definitely could be some lake enhancement up that way. A lot would depend on the actual setup and trajectory off the lake, but I'd think once you get off 79 onto 19 you would probably be out of the worst of it. One other thing to note too is that Erie's water temperatures are in the mid 30s now, so that will also further limit enhancement. Overall I'd think you shouldn't have to worry about shutdowns of any of those routes.

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1 minute ago, colonel717 said:

Come on, you are getting 6+ inches of snow.  Others near you are getting less than 2 inches and yet others are getting up to 12 inches...what is there to be skeptical about....

I think the RGEM has been better so let's see what that has to say. 

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26 minutes ago, colonel717 said:

I am actually not buying any model.  They are still all over.  I am just going to be watching the radar.   I'll believe we get more than snow showers when I see it.

I don't think we see any measurable snow until the clipper parade begins. 

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26 minutes ago, CoraopolisWx said:

Even though this was always going to be a rain event, it's still sad seeing that nice moisture feed being wasted.

Nothing new honestly for our area. This looks like something that would occur in early December not January. 

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