Western Pa / Pittsburgh area Winter Discussion ❄️☃️

[CoraopolisWx]

Kind of a waste of cold air this late in the season. Not that this is uncommon for early March, but it still would've been nice to cash in on something.

[Ahoff]

4 minutes ago, CoraopolisWx said:

Kind of a waste of cold air this late in the season. Not that this is uncommon for early March, but it still would've been nice to cash in on something.

Eh, at this point I'm good.  It's March, so I'm ready for a warm up.  Tuesday and Wednesday next week are looking nice.

[TimB]

16 minutes ago, Ahoff said:

Eh, at this point I'm good.  It's March, so I'm ready for a warm up.  Tuesday and Wednesday next week are looking nice.

I think a warm up next week is a fair compromise if we get the cold, stormy pattern the following week. Flow looks too zonal at that point though, so not counting on much.

[Ahoff]

1 hour ago, TimB84 said:

I think a warm up next week is a fair compromise if we get the cold, stormy pattern the following week. Flow looks too zonal at that point though, so not counting on much.

My point is once we get into late March, I'm done with snow.  So, once it warms up next week, I'd like it to stay.

[TimB]

1 hour ago, Ahoff said:

My point is once we get into late March, I'm done with snow.  So, once it warms up next week, I'd like it to stay.

Meh. We have 7 warm months after March before it gets cold again (maybe 8, depending on what November does - and yes, I would say that April and October are warm months - though I’m open to differences in opinion on that). That’s plenty for me.

Also, I’ll take snow any day and month of the year we can get it, even if that means recording a trace in May like last year. Winter doesn’t last forever, but summer always seems to drag on forever. Maybe because it actually has the past several years - September has been a summer month every year in recent memory and you could say the same for May if you throw out the first half of the month last year.

[Rd9108]

Winter may have one more trick up its sleeve 

 

[TimB]

Ah yes, this one. Maybe the 0z run will continue to show this Day 14 storm. Or maybe the 0z run will have us at 75 and sunny that day. Both are (equally?) possible. That said, the Para does have extreme anomalous cold in the same timeframe, just without the storm. We’ll find out soon.

Edit: all runs of today’s GFS and Para are not our friend on this. Extrapolating the Euro, it still seems possible. Even that seems questionable. But I think a snowfall that week is probably more likely than 75 and sunny at this point. Perhaps we’ll even see both with this tug of war between warm and cold.

Despite this waffling of the models, NWS CPC has below normal temps for all but the far southeast US and above normal precip for the east in the 8-14 day range. Doesn’t look like they’re putting much confidence in it either though.

I’ll bet we run a couple degrees either above or below average for the 3/15-3/21 period, with an inch or two of wet snow somewhere in there to pad the stats.

[Ahoff]

Officially the warmest day of the year at 64.

[TimB]

26 minutes ago, Ahoff said:

Officially the warmest day of the year at 64.

Also this morning’s low of 45 officially ends the streak of days with a low temperature of 37 or lower at 101 days (3rd all time).

[Ahoff]

68 currently.  Might we reach 70?

[TimB]

Looks like 70 will have to wait, at least officially at KPIT. KAGC and many other sites in western PA hit 70 yesterday. We do have a solid shot at a daily record warm low depending on where we stand at 11:59 this evening.

I’d be remiss not to include this... 

[Ahoff]

31 minutes ago, TimB84 said:

Looks like 70 will have to wait, at least officially at KPIT. KAGC and many other sites in western PA hit 70 yesterday. We do have a solid shot at a daily record warm low depending on where we stand at 11:59 this evening.

I’d be remiss not to include this... 

I'd be floored if parts of the state received 4 feet of snow over the two weeks.

[TimB]

22 minutes ago, Ahoff said:

I'd be floored if parts of the state received 4 feet of snow over the two weeks.

I second that, considering almost all of that is in the last 48 hours of the GFS’s run and isn’t continued in the 6z (and even if it were consistently in the model every day for the next week, we’d still be a week out). It’s for entertainment purposes only at this point.

That said, it’s certainly more entertaining to me to watch the GFS pile 4 feet of snow on St. Marys, PA than it is to watch the GFS pile 4 feet of snow on Denver.

[TimB]

HRRR is an outlier but has performed well with these warm stretches, and suggests we could get to 74 today. Satellite shows broken clouds upstream over Ohio. I think we sneak past 70 this afternoon.

Edit: bust! No breaks in the clouds to be found.

[Ahoff]

Beautiful March day today!

[CoraopolisWx]

What a day.

 

[RitualOfTheTrout]

6 hours ago, CoraopolisWx said:

What a day.

 

Ill say.. Amazing storm. Doubtful we ever see something of that magnitude again in our lifetime but possible a smaller storm could still produce locally similar results.

Heck of a blizzard taking shape out west. 

[TimB]

Compare that to this March, where if the models are correct, we have a very good shot at finishing the month with only the fluke 0.1” we recorded on the 1st.

[Ahoff]

9 hours ago, TimB84 said:

Compare that to this March, where if the models are correct, we have a very good shot at finishing the month with only the fluke 0.1” we recorded on the 1st.

Just the way it goes.  Good thing we got 55” over the winter.

[TimB]

1 hour ago, Ahoff said:

Just the way it goes.  Good thing we got 55” over the winter.

That’s fair. Of course a good winter helps to make up for a low March snow total, but one caveat: a winter with 55 inches or more of snow is much more common than a March with 0.1 inches or less. In fact, if the 0.1” total holds, it will be something that has never been experienced by any Pittsburgher under the age of 75 (which of course means never at KPIT). Hardly “the way it goes” unless you’re an octogenarian.

[Ahoff]

16 hours ago, TimB84 said:

That’s fair. Of course a good winter helps to make up for a low March snow total, but one caveat: a winter with 55 inches or more of snow is much more common than a March with 0.1 inches or less. In fact, if the 0.1” total holds, it will be something that has never been experienced by any Pittsburgher under the age of 75 (which of course means never at KPIT). Hardly “the way it goes” unless you’re an octogenarian.

Ok...I only care about the snow total at the end of the season.  55" contained mostly between December and February is pretty perfect.  It was a great winter.  My point was, if we get low totals for March, that's just the way it goes, I didn't mean literally that .1" is the only way this could go.

[TimB]

18 hours ago, Ahoff said:

Ok...I only care about the snow total at the end of the season.  55" contained mostly between December and February is pretty perfect.  It was a great winter.  My point was, if we get low totals for March, that's just the way it goes, I didn't mean literally that .1" is the only way this could go.

I think .1” is the most likely total we end up with for March. With that being said, it depends on how you grade a winter. Do you look at it as a whole, or do you look at individual months in addition to that whole? I would say I do the latter (and I count all months that average an appreciable amount of snow - Dec. through March), in which December was unquestionably an A+, January was a solid B, February was probably an A, and I would have to say March would unquestionably be an F if it ends at the total we have now. I don’t think I weight March as heavily as the other three, so it only drags an A/A- winter down to a B/B+ in my mind, but it’s hard for me to give a 55” winter an A on the whole, even without looking at individual months, considering we do better than 55” about 20% of the time.

[Ecanem]

As a skier. This winter was an A+++++ probably too 1-2 of the last decade.

[Ahoff]

Such a beautiful St. Patrick's Day!

[TimB]

Looks like 1.85” of rain so far at KPIT. 2nd wettest March day on record. Won’t catch 3/6/45 with 2.58”. (Edited 7pm)

[RitualOfTheTrout]

6 hours ago, TimB84 said:

Looks like 1.85” of rain so far at KPIT. 2nd wettest March day on record. Won’t catch 3/6/45 with 2.58”. (Edited 7pm)

They don't make them much more miserable than this that's for sure as far as spring days go.

[meatwad]

000
SXUS71 KPBZ 190534
RERPIT

RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PITTSBURGH PA
134 AM EDT FRI MAR 19 2021

...RECORD DAILY MAXIMUM RAINFALL SET AT PITTSBURGH PA...

A RECORD RAINFALL OF 2.19 WAS SET AT PITTSBURGH PA YESTERDAY, MARCH
18 2021. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 1.32 SET IN 1908.

Only if it was 25 degrees colder.

[TimB]

Interestingly, the official total of 2.19” at KPIT yesterday appears to be the highest total in PA reported by the NWS. If only we could get that bullseye during a snowstorm. (Not necessarily saying 2.19”, obviously that would be historic at 10:1 and an all time record at 12:1).

[Burghblizz]

On 3/14/2021 at 8:35 PM, Ahoff said:

Just the way it goes.  Good thing we got 55” over the winter.

I like the way the snow came too. Nice big chunks. So maybe we didn’t hit prodigious season totals since the ending fizzled, but enjoyable.

(I bet we do add something to that total, just not counting on anything that changes the overall winter assessment)

[Ahoff]

1 hour ago, Burghblizz said:

I like the way the snow came too. Nice big chunks. So maybe we didn’t hit prodigious season totals since the ending fizzled, but enjoyable.

(I bet we do add something to that total, just not counting on anything that changes the overall winter assessment)

Yes, the number of 6"+ storms was great.  I couldn't ask for more at all.  Plus, February having at least 4" of snow on the ground for 3 solid weeks was great.