Western PA/Pittsburgh Winter 2021/22 Discussion

[TimB]

On 1/16/2022 at 10:23 PM, TimB84 said:

It will. By Wednesday afternoon you’ll see parts of your lawn that you just saw earlier today.

 

46 minutes ago, PghPirates27 said:

Exactly now I can see green in my yard lol. About to hit 45 and still sunny.

 

[RitualOfTheTrout]

8 minutes ago, north pgh said:

I think Snow cover is overrated and I don’t worry much about it anymore. We should still have a few inches on the ground tonight and nice cold for the Weekend to set up our next storm early next week. 

Its all subjective, but snow cover is less overrated than single digits and bare ground imho. If its going to be cold, and no snow is falling there might as well be some on the ground.

1 hour ago, TimB84 said:

That’s what I mean. Whenever we get a pattern that looks good for snow retention, it gets put in jeopardy by a day that was supposed to be overcast and struggle to reach 40 instead torching well into the mid-40s with lots of sun.

WAA is almost always under modeled, hence why during a storm we get the warm nose. It does suck, but there should be enough liquid in the snow / frozen ground underneath / lower sun angle through filtered overcast that we don't lose to much. Its going to compact but whatever refreezes should having some staying power.

[Ahoff]

We had 9", one day in the 40s will not eliminate the pack.

[TimB]

Front of my house faces north toward the street. The backyard is protected by trees, so it still has a solid snowpack. The front yard is somewhat protected by my house, so it still has a decent snowpack. (Except in areas where my dog trampled down the snow, which are obviously a bit worse off.) Across the street where there is much less protection from the sun, there are large patches of green visible. And still 3 hours of daylight and several more hours of temps above freezing to go.

[Ahoff]

42 minutes ago, TimB84 said:

Front of my house faces north toward the street. The backyard is protected by trees, so it still has a solid snowpack. The front yard is somewhat protected by my house, so it still has a decent snowpack. (Except in areas where my dog trampled down the snow, which are obviously a bit worse off.) Across the street where there is much less protection from the sun, there are large patches of green visible. And still 3 hours of daylight and several more hours of temps above freezing to go.

There's literally nothing we can do, there will still be snow, and it will be very cold through the weekend.

[TimB]

Just now, Ahoff said:

There's literally nothing we can do, there will still be snow, and it will be very cold through the weekend.

Who said I wanted to do anything about it? Just lamenting something that sucks about our climate in recent years.

[Ahoff]

1 hour ago, TimB84 said:

Who said I wanted to do anything about it? Just lamenting something that sucks about our climate in recent years.

Just saying.  Enjoy the snow you have.  We have big cold coming and could always get more in this pattern.

[Rd9108]

Hopefully we can sneak out an inch or even a coating to refresh the snowpack from this wave. HRRR trended north somewhat but it's still not enough. There's like a wall at the bottom of AGH County.

[TimB]

1 hour ago, Ahoff said:

Just saying.  Enjoy the snow you have.  We have big cold coming and could always get more in this pattern.

All of that is true. It’s just, there was a time within a lot of our lifetimes that you could get 9” of snow in the climatologically coldest part of winter and it would be reasonable to expect it to have some staying power and not have the majority of it melt within 60 hours of the end of the storm. Then again, there was also a time within a lot of our lifetimes that highs near 20 and lows in the single digits to near 0 wouldn’t be described as “big cold”.

[TimB]

For example, a couple randomly selected years with a good snowstorm in January:

January 19-20, 2001: 6.8” of snow fell, snow depth remained 4”+ through 1/29.

January 7, 1996: 9.2” of snow fell, snow depth remained 6”+ through 1/17 (albeit with a couple smaller reinforcing events in between).

We just didn’t torch right after these events in years past.

And here we are, only down to 41 with snow continuing to melt at 8pm on a day that was only supposed to get to 40.

[Ahoff]

1 hour ago, TimB84 said:

All of that is true. It’s just, there was a time within a lot of our lifetimes that you could get 9” of snow in the climatologically coldest part of winter and it would be reasonable to expect it to have some staying power and not have the majority of it melt within 60 hours of the end of the storm. Then again, there was also a time within a lot of our lifetimes that highs near 20 and lows in the single digits to near 0 wouldn’t be described as “big cold”.

They’re 15-20 below average, that’s always big cold.  We can’t expect to have -10 every year.  Ironically, today is the anniversary of our coldest temperature ever -22.  That’s massive cold.  But I’d say near 0 is always big cold.

[Ahoff]

22 minutes ago, TimB84 said:

For example, a couple randomly selected years with a good snowstorm in January:

January 19-20, 2001: 6.8” of snow fell, snow depth remained 4”+ through 1/29.

January 7, 1996: 9.2” of snow fell, snow depth remained 6”+ through 1/17 (albeit with a couple smaller reinforcing events in between).

We just didn’t torch right after these events in years past.

And here we are, only down to 41 with snow continuing to melt at 8pm on a day that was only supposed to get to 40.

Also the “torch” is one day.  Not like we got 9” then a week of 50.  We got 9”, then 45 for one day two days after, then 10-20 below normal.  It happens, I wouldn’t think this is so unusual.

[Rd9108]

3k NAM and HRRR both trended a little north. We won't be bullseyed but maybe we sneak in an inch somehow.

[TimB]

1 hour ago, Ahoff said:

They’re 15-20 below average, that’s always big cold.  We can’t expect to have -10 every year.  Ironically, today is the anniversary of our coldest temperature ever -22.  That’s massive cold.  But I’d say near 0 is always big cold.

So you’d consider the days of +15 to +20 that we get at least once in just about every non-summer month to be big heat?

[Ahoff]

14 minutes ago, TimB84 said:

So you’d consider the days of +15 to +20 that we get at least once in just about every non-summer month to be big heat?

Compared to average?  Yes.

[north pgh]

Just took out the dog. Winds are howling and temps are starting to fall. 35 degrees.

 

Icy Roadways Possible Overnight Across the Region...

Rapidly falling temperatures behind a cold front combined with
earlier snowmelt could result in icy conditions / areas of black
ice along untreated roadways and surfaces overnight. Motorists
and those out and about are urged to use extra caution.

[PghPirates27]

32.2 almost freezing here the wind picking up 

[Ahoff]

Have a coating at my house.

[MikeB_01]

1 minute ago, Ahoff said:

Have a coating at my house.

Same here and a few streamers coming in from the north. Doesn't look like anything substantial, but maybe if you get under something decent, you can pick up another 1/4-1/2 inch.

[MikeB_01]

Interesting to hear Smily this morning talking about accumulations of more than 1" for next tuesday. I think he is talking about the bowling ball of a cut off low that is going to find itself sitting out over Arizona. The GFS shows this eventually getting caught up in a relatively zonal flow and moving east towards us with some form of precipitation. From what I can tell, the GFS is the only one picking up on this energy moving in our direction. Euro has it south and never really materializing. Am I missing something here?

[Ahoff]

1 hour ago, MikeB_01 said:

Interesting to hear Smily this morning talking about accumulations of more than 1" for next tuesday. I think he is talking about the bowling ball of a cut off low that is going to find itself sitting out over Arizona. The GFS shows this eventually getting caught up in a relatively zonal flow and moving east towards us with some form of precipitation. From what I can tell, the GFS is the only one picking up on this energy moving in our direction. Euro has it south and never really materializing. Am I missing something here?

GFS has been better this year, lol.  Maybe that's it.  24th-25th was a period mentioned for possibly something.

He's also keeps PM snow for Sunday too.  Not sure why?

[TimB]

10 minutes ago, Ahoff said:

GFS has been better this year, lol.  Maybe that's it.  24th-25th was a period mentioned for possibly something.

He's also keeps PM snow for Sunday too.  Not sure why?

TWC sees the Monday-Tuesday thing as a possible low end advisory type event, and is carrying a chance of snow on Sunday, so maybe he got it from there?

[MikeB_01]

1 hour ago, Ahoff said:

GFS has been better this year, lol.  Maybe that's it.  24th-25th was a period mentioned for possibly something.

He's also keeps PM snow for Sunday too.  Not sure why?

 

1 hour ago, TimB84 said:

TWC sees the Monday-Tuesday thing as a possible low end advisory type event, and is carrying a chance of snow on Sunday, so maybe he got it from there?

Sunday is the clipper no? 

[TimB]

8 minutes ago, MikeB_01 said:

 

Sunday is the clipper no? 

I believe so, yes. Aren’t they both clippers in some form, except the Mon-Tues one tries to tap into southern stream moisture?

[north pgh]

20 minutes ago, TimB84 said:

I believe so, yes. Aren’t they both clippers in some form, except the Mon-Tues one tries to tap into southern stream moisture?

This shows up well on the Canadian. The only one thus far but may be sniffing on to something. We'll see if it continues at 12z.

[PghPirates27]

Weather channel has 1-3” with a high of 32. I’d just be worried about rain. 

[TimB]

4 minutes ago, PghPirates27 said:

Weather channel has 1-3” with a high of 32. I’d just be worried about rain. 

That’s the problem, if this phases with the southern stream I could see major p-type issues.

[dj3]

Snowacane is back on the 12 GFS for the 28-30th timeframe but it doesn't track inland stays mostly offshore. 

[TimB]

42 minutes ago, dj3 said:

Snowacane is back on the 12 GFS for the 28-30th timeframe but it doesn't track inland stays mostly offshore. 

It is, unfortunately, the pattern changer. The 500 pattern looks much more like December after that, but it’s a week and a half away and hopefully won’t have the kind of staying power it had in December.

[TimB]

On the positive side, GFS and CMC both give us at least an inch on Sunday and a couple to a few inches from the early week system.