Western Pa / Pittsburgh area Winter Discussion ❄️☃️

[KPITSnow]

1 minute ago, Rd9108 said:

Call me a Debby downer but give me plain rain over what some of these models are showing with the sleet and freezing rain. 

That I agree with.

[Ahoff]

45 minutes ago, TimB84 said:

I think that’s an undeniable fact, with one caveat. If this snow season ends with the 49.7 inches we’ve had so far, and nothing more (unlikely, as it’s almost certain we’ll get at least a little more), I would classify that as a good but not necessarily “great” season. If that’s the final season total, it’s slightly above average. To use a sports analogy, if you will, a snow season with 49.7” would be like a Steelers season where they go 11-5 and win one playoff game before getting eliminated (certainly better than recent years, but “good, not great.”)

Sure, but looking at the details of the year, 2nd snowiest December ever, after years of awful Decembers.  Whitest Christmas of all time, when a white Christmas is rare.  A January, that despite not be overtly wintery was cold (overall), and didn't reach 50 at all, and had near normal snow.  A February, that half way through has reached average snow amounts, has not yet reached 40, likely won't for a few more days at least, and has had at least 4 inches of snow on the ground the whole month.  And overall, a season that featured, as of now 4 storms of more than 6".  Probably the first time in a while that's happened.

We could see a season with 50", but snow that melts the next day.  Looks like by your analysis that's a good year.  I wouldn't qualify it that way.  This will be one of my great winters.  not the best (that was 09-10).  But great for sure.

[TimB]

27 minutes ago, Ahoff said:

Sure, but looking at the details of the year, 2nd snowiest December ever, after years of awful Decembers.  Whitest Christmas of all time, when a white Christmas is rare.  A January, that despite not be overtly wintery was cold (overall), and didn't reach 50 at all, and had near normal snow.  A February, that half way through has reached average snow amounts, has not yet reached 40, likely won't for a few more days at least, and has had at least 4 inches of snow on the ground the whole month.  And overall, a season that featured, as of now 4 storms of more than 6".  Probably the first time in a while that's happened.

We could see a season with 50", but snow that melts the next day.  Looks like by your analysis that's a good year.  I wouldn't qualify it that way.  This will be one of my great winters.  not the best (that was 09-10).  But great for sure.

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

[Ahoff]

11 minutes ago, TimB84 said:

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

See I disagree with 17-18.  It had a cold snowy December, and white Christmas.  Very cold and snowy January, even had you below 0 weather.  A cold and snowy March, and even 7" of snow in April (which I actually didn't care for at that point).  Febraury was the only issue of the winter.

[blackngoldrules]

Yikes.

[KPITSnow]

3 minutes ago, blackngoldrules said:

Yikes.

Well, it would be nice if my employer delays opening our business Tuesday morning if this happens.

[blackngoldrules]

Well, it would be nice if my employer delays opening our business Tuesday morning if this happens.

If this happens, he may not have power to open his business. Lol

[KPITSnow]

9 minutes ago, blackngoldrules said:

15 minutes ago, KPITSnow said:

Well, it would be nice if my employer delays opening our business Tuesday morning if this happens.

If this happens, he may not have power to open his business. Lol

Ice is one thing that is a hard no for me going out in.

[TimB]

33 minutes ago, Ahoff said:

See I disagree with 17-18.  It had a cold snowy December, and white Christmas.  Very cold and snowy January, even had you below 0 weather.  A cold and snowy March, and even 7" of snow in April (which I actually didn't care for at that point).  Febraury was the only issue of the winter.

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.

[north pgh]

This may be a split allegheny county special. I can see eastern allegheny county getting 2-4 and western allegheny county 4-8.i think everyone gets 1-3 from the first waive. I hope with the second waive if we do mix we get sleet over freezing rain. Then maybe another 1-3 backend overnight Monday. It’s going to be interesting to say the list. I think we stay all frozen however. I just can’t see plain rain. We haven’t been above freezing for 2 weeks. Just my guesses.  We’ll see. 

[KPITSnow]

10 minutes ago, north pgh said:

This may be a split allegheny county special. I can see eastern allegheny county getting 2-4 and western allegheny county 4-8.i think everyone gets 1-3 from the first waive. I hope with the second waive if we do mix we get sleet over freezing rain. Then maybe another 1-3 backend overnight Monday. It’s going to be interesting to say the list. I think we stay all frozen however. I just can’t see plain rain. We haven’t been above freezing for 2 weeks. Just my guesses.  We’ll see. 

You say this...but how many times have we gone from artic cold to 50 in 12 hours lol.

[Ahoff]

2 minutes ago, KPITSnow said:

You say this...but how many times have we gone from artic cold to 50 in 12 hours lol.

We have a decent snowpack, so it should mitigate extremely warm weather. 

[TimB]

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

[Rd9108]

Just now, TimB84 said:

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

Euro does the same thing. This might end up being our bigger snow threat than tomorrow. 

[Ahoff]

Weird that this would go west and they'd trend the other east.  I guess usually storms trend east one after another.

[TimB]

12 minutes ago, Rd9108 said:

Euro does the same thing. This might end up being our bigger snow threat than tomorrow. 

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

[TimB]

44 minutes ago, north pgh said:

This may be a split allegheny county special. I can see eastern allegheny county getting 2-4 and western allegheny county 4-8.i think everyone gets 1-3 from the first waive. I hope with the second waive if we do mix we get sleet over freezing rain. Then maybe another 1-3 backend overnight Monday. It’s going to be interesting to say the list. I think we stay all frozen however. I just can’t see plain rain. We haven’t been above freezing for 2 weeks. Just my guesses.  We’ll see. 

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.

[Ahoff]

SREF is around 5" average, and the mean temperature doesn't get above 32 the entire storm.

[jwilson]

I'm noticing a lot of the short-term models are keeping the initial thump on Monday relatively dry.  As that looks like the colder of the two "events," that could diminish the overall snowfall totals.  Some models aren't showing a distinct break between the two, but I think a dry slot or period is fairly likely at this point.

[RitualOfTheTrout]

NAM is the warmest model, 32-34 during bulk of the precipitation and gets into the upper 30s before the cold swings back through. Even if we stay at 31, ice accretion will not be efficient. Sure there will be a glaze but it's not a 1:1 ratio like those maps project. 

 

[TimB]

Just now, RitualOfTheTrout said:

NAM is the warmest model, 32-34 during bulk of the precipitation and gets into the upper 30s before the cold swings back through. Even if we stay at 31, ice accretion will not be efficient. Sure there will be a glaze but it's not a 1:1 ratio like those maps project. 

 

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

[RitualOfTheTrout]

Just now, TimB84 said:

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

That will help a little, but I just don't get excited over ice depicted unless it's at least in the 20s. Ice formation releases latent heat too so you need some mechanism to replenish the cold. Don't get me wrong even a tenth of ice on an untreated surface can be a disaster, but you won't be seeing trees snapping and power outages if the NAM temperature profile verifies.

[jwilson]

53 minutes ago, Ahoff said:

Weird that this would go west and they'd trend the other east.  I guess usually storms trend east one after another.

Yep.  A more wrapped-up Tuesday storm, traversing into the 50/50 region, could lower heights in the east and thus provide a more optimal path for the system that follows.  You can see in the mid-range GFS how the flow gets flattened by the early week events under blocking.

[jwilson]

19 minutes ago, RitualOfTheTrout said:

NAM is the warmest model, 32-34 during bulk of the precipitation and gets into the upper 30s before the cold swings back through. Even if we stay at 31, ice accretion will not be efficient. Sure there will be a glaze but it's not a 1:1 ratio like those maps project. 

I can't figure out the NAM.  The sounding profile says sleet, but the surface reflection shows plain rain.  Possible it doesn't matter if it's overamped - although the only meso I can see with an all snow event is the WRF-NMM.

[TimB]

33 minutes ago, RitualOfTheTrout said:

That will help a little, but I just don't get excited over ice depicted unless it's at least in the 20s. Ice formation releases latent heat too so you need some mechanism to replenish the cold. Don't get me wrong even a tenth of ice on an untreated surface can be a disaster, but you won't be seeing trees snapping and power outages if the NAM temperature profile verifies.

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.

[Ecanem]

This cutoff is giving me nightmares from previous years.  

[MikeB_01]

This cutoff is giving me nightmares from previous years.  

Horrendous. 25 miles makes a huge difference


.

[RitualOfTheTrout]

14 minutes ago, TimB84 said:

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.

Yeah I'd rather have a sleet bomb if we can't get snow if I had the choice although those aren't very enjoyable to go take a walk in like a heavy snow unless you like the sensation of being sand blasted.

[TimB]

13 minutes ago, Ecanem said:

This cutoff is giving me nightmares from previous years.  

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.

[RitualOfTheTrout]

Just now, MikeB_01 said:

Horrendous. 25 miles makes a huge difference


.

Still well within model error though, where that zone sets up could be off by 25-50 miles even as we get close to game time. Unfortunately the direction of the error is probably NW given we still seem to be bleeding that way. Now if we see a SE tick to the track and infiltration of warm air as we close in then maybe you can hedge that will continue through the storm. One other thing to note though is that the snow maps can be really misleading in the transition zone, so it's hard to tell if we are really that close or not just based off that.