Pittsburgh, PA/Western PA Fall/Winter Discussion 2022-23

[Burghblizz]

57 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

I feel like, as we enter into a new climate regime, it's going to be difficult not to see our snowfall decline precipitously. Pittsburgh is just too far south and low elevation to see much snow in a warmer climate. I think most places at similar latitude and altitude see less in the way of snowfall already, and many of our bigger storms are already nailbiters here. So I would expect more of the precipitation from those events to fall as rain.

“The new climate regime”….lol. I know this winter has sucked and today is warm, but…

Our 30 year average snow went UP to 44” during the period ending in 2020.

The first 2 complete years of this decade are averaging even MORE than that.
 

Even the futility of multiple bad years in the late 80s/early 90s turned into boom years.

Not doubting overall climate change, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves in terms of our own weather. There are no significant here trends for less snow. The last 90 days kinda sucked. That’s really the extent of it. 

[Ahoff]

49 minutes ago, TimB said:

Also, there are only two times on record that February has recorded an inch or less of snow in Pittsburgh, 1909 with 0.5” and 1884 with 0.6”. We’re at 0.2” so far and if the 12z GFS is right, we have a chance at breaking those records.

Those were a long time ago, so weird we had bad winters back them too, hmmm?

[TimB]

2 minutes ago, Ahoff said:

Those were a long time ago, so weird we had bad winters back them too, hmmm?

Yeah, probably like 4 feet from the exhaust of a steel mill or something.

[Burghblizz]

14 minutes ago, Ahoff said:

Those were a long time ago, so weird we had bad winters back them too, hmmm?

Probably less dilligent about it. Don’t think they were out systematically measuring every .5” that fell before it melted. You see some old lean winters where you figure that had to be part of it. 

[Ahoff]

1 hour ago, Burghblizz said:

Probably less dilligent about it. Don’t think they were out systematically measuring every .5” that fell before it melted. You see some old lean winters where you figure that had to be part of it. 

I mean, yeah probably, but there are also 6 Februarys from 1875 to 1899 that featured 70s for highs (1883 hit 76).  Obviously, not as reliable, taken downtown, blah, blah, blah, I know, there definitely wasn't as large an urban heat island back then either.  Point is there were warm and snowless winters over 100 years ago too.  One year isn't a pattern.

 

Meanwhile, in these last 25 years we've hit 70 in February...the same, 6 times, with a three year run from 1999-2001.

[TimB]

1 hour ago, Ahoff said:

I mean, yeah probably, but there are also 6 Februarys from 1875 to 1899 that featured 70s for highs (1883 hit 76).  Obviously, not as reliable, taken downtown, blah, blah, blah, I know, there definitely wasn't as large an urban heat island back then either.  Point is there were warm and snowless winters over 100 years ago too.  One year isn't a pattern.

 

Meanwhile, in these last 25 years we've hit 70 in February...the same, 6 times, with a three year run from 1999-2001.

Yeah, downtown was at an elevation of 1200 feet in the 1800s.

[TimB]

70 has been attained. 3rd time in history that this has happened twice by 2/15.

[Ahoff]

33 minutes ago, TimB said:

Yeah, downtown was at an elevation of 1200 feet in the 1800s.

You really like to nitpick every stat.  You dig up obscure ones, but ignore equally relevant ones I'm bringing up.

Look, I'm sorry this winter sucks, I know it does, I hate it to, but this is not an unprecedented winter and it is not a part of any kind of pattern at this point.  It's a clunker, best to accept and move on to the next.

[TimB]

And just like that, next week’s hope is gone. The last week of meteorological winter, at that. Truly more abysmal than 2019-20, and I was hoping that wasn’t possible.

[TimB]

22 hours ago, Ahoff said:

You really like to nitpick every stat.  You dig up obscure ones, but ignore equally relevant ones I'm bringing up.

Look, I'm sorry this winter sucks, I know it does, I hate it to, but this is not an unprecedented winter and it is not a part of any kind of pattern at this point.  It's a clunker, best to accept and move on to the next.

Yeah, you’re right, everything we’ve had so far is precedented in some way, whether it’s with really old data or I’m cherry picking stats. But the models are converging on a solution within a week that would give us an unprecedented, not that obscure stat. Hint: We tied a record yesterday that we very well might have the opportunity to break next week. Something that’s quite literally never happened in any winter month ever.

[Ahoff]

25 minutes ago, TimB said:

Yeah, you’re right, everything we’ve had so far is precedented in some way, whether it’s with really old data or I’m cherry picking stats. But the models are converging on a solution within a week that would give us an unprecedented, not that obscure stat. Hint: We tied a record yesterday that we very well might have the opportunity to break next week. Something that’s quite literally never happened in any winter month ever.

Ok, you win.  Literally the worst winter ever, none have ever compared to just truly unheard of this one is.  We've never seen tons of cutters and 60 and 70 degree days in winter.  Might as well just change the City name to Orlando or something.

[TimB]

8 minutes ago, Ahoff said:

Ok, you win.  Literally the worst winter ever, none have ever compared to just truly unheard of this one is.  We've never seen tons of cutters and 60 and 70 degree days in winter.  Might as well just change the City name to Orlando or something.

December:

January:

February:

Euro for 2/23:

CMC for 2/23:

 

No winter month has ever gotten to 70 degrees three times. It’s looking possible.

[Ahoff]

4 minutes ago, TimB said:

December:

January:

February:

Euro for 2/23:

CMC for 2/23:

 

No winter month has ever gotten to 70 degrees three times. It’s looking possible.

Who cares?

Though it does look like 1906 did.

[TimB]

2 minutes ago, Ahoff said:

Who cares?

Though it does look like 1906 did.

Not in a single month it didn’t.

[Ahoff]

1 hour ago, TimB said:

Not in a single month it didn’t.

That's simply semantics.

[Gordo74]

Weird precipitation block even for today's system that was supposed to drop about an inch of rain between today and tonight. So far, tallied a whole .01" here.

 

 

[Rd9108]

About at that point for this thread 

 

[KPITSnow]

2 hours ago, Ahoff said:

That's simply semantics.

I think denying climate change is really shutting your eyes at this point. Individual data points of individual locations is not a great way to look at it, but it’s pretty undeniable on a global scale 

https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/

 

[KPITSnow]

5 hours ago, TimB said:

Yeah, you’re right, everything we’ve had so far is precedented in some way, whether it’s with really old data or I’m cherry picking stats. But the models are converging on a solution within a week that would give us an unprecedented, not that obscure stat. Hint: We tied a record yesterday that we very well might have the opportunity to break next week. Something that’s quite literally never happened in any winter month ever.

Climate change is real. Period 

[TimB]

1 hour ago, KPITSnow said:

I think denying climate change is really shutting your eyes at this point. Individual data points of individual locations is not a great way to look at it, but it’s pretty undeniable on a global scale 

https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/

 

I’m not entirely certain he’s denying it, but rather (correctly) pointing out that this garbage winter can’t be completely 100% attributed to it. The patterns are pretty stark, but the last two winters were fine.

[Ahoff]

1 hour ago, KPITSnow said:

I think denying climate change is really shutting your eyes at this point. Individual data points of individual locations is not a great way to look at it, but it’s pretty undeniable on a global scale 

https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/

 

Never denied climate change, but to act as if these things we are seeing this year have never occurred is denying reality.

[dj3]

13 minutes ago, Ahoff said:

Never denied climate change, but to act as if these things we are seeing this year have never occurred is denying reality.

I’m too lazy to look up the numbers but I remember February 09 had a crazy warm spell. Either way this winter has been dogsh*t. Probably the least fun in the 2 years I’ve been tracking. We’ll get an above normal winter again.. probably soon.. climate change is real and none of us will be alive at a point where the snowfall amount this winter is considered “normal”. See you guys next fall. 

[TheClimateChanger]

7 hours ago, Gordo74 said:

Weird precipitation block even for today's system that was supposed to drop about an inch of rain between today and tonight. So far, tallied a whole .01" here.

 

 

Ever since that gigantic toxic waste plume passed through western Pennsylvania, every storm system just seems to fizzle out overhead. Not sure if there's some sort of program of cloud seeding upstream to cut down on the acid rain until it dissipates more?

[TheClimateChanger]

 

https://twitter.com/NWSWPC/status/1625965869732954129?s=20

[RitualOfTheTrout]

10 hours ago, TimB said:

I’m not entirely certain he’s denying it, but rather (correctly) pointing out that this garbage winter can’t be completely 100% attributed to it. The patterns are pretty stark, but the last two winters were fine.

It can't be 100% attributed to any one storm or season. Climate change will make bad patterns even worse, ie to your data points maybe 100 years ago a bad winter pattern would yield 5 inches of snow on the season and 2 70 degree days, but now its 2 inches of snow and 6 70 degree days. This pattern would suck in any era relative to normal. Does climate change play a role in making these "bad" patterns more frequent or make the "good" ones less effective? Does it make past analogues with a marginal setup where we just squeaked by at 32 and had heavy snow now more likely to be an all out fail? Does it further reduce other forces that might mitigate a bad situation to make it workable for snow? Probably, but its going to take decades to see that trend in the data.

It's even likely that we see some sort of "sweet spot" were warmer more moisture laden atmosphere meets up with still cold enough planet to increase our snow averages. Maybe we are in that now, or getting to the tail end when its more likely going to be to warm, no way to know yet.

Admittedly I'm basing that on the idea that the change will be slow, at least relative to the scale of a human lifetime. Maybe that's wrong and once we get past a certain point exponentiation deterioration will rapidly put an end to winter weather in our area.  Point is I'd need to see several years to say this season is anything close to a "new normal".

 

[Ahoff]

7 hours ago, TheClimateChanger said:

 

https://twitter.com/NWSWPC/status/1625965869732954129?s=20

Clearly a western winter.

[jwilson]

1 hour ago, RitualOfTheTrout said:

It can't be 100% attributed to any one storm or season. Climate change will make bad patterns even worse, ie to your data points maybe 100 years ago a bad winter pattern would yield 5 inches of snow on the season and 2 70 degree days, but now its 2 inches of snow and 6 70 degree days. This pattern would suck in any era relative to normal. Does climate change play a role in making these "bad" patterns more frequent or make the "good" ones less effective? Does it make past analogues with a marginal setup where we just squeaked by at 32 and had heavy snow now more likely to be an all out fail? Does it further reduce other forces that might mitigate a bad situation to make it workable for snow? Probably, but its going to take decades to see that trend in the data.

It's even likely that we see some sort of "sweet spot" were warmer more moisture laden atmosphere meets up with still cold enough planet to increase our snow averages. Maybe we are in that now, or getting to the tail end when its more likely going to be to warm, no way to know yet.

Admittedly I'm basing that on the idea that the change will be slow, at least relative to the scale of a human lifetime. Maybe that's wrong and once we get past a certain point exponentiation deterioration will rapidly put an end to winter weather in our area.  Point is I'd need to see several years to say this season is anything close to a "new normal".

I think this is one reason people still lean into denial that any sort of global-scale climate change is occurring.  It's not always obvious on an individual basis, and this is how we humans tend to perceive things.  To say the world is gradually heating up is a bit too "abstract" in the sense that, on a day-to-day level, we don't really notice it.  The other issue is we can't over-attribute singular events (or seasons) to climate change with our limited scale of knowledge.  There's the causality versus correlation dynamic, and we don't have a firm understanding of it yet.  We'll probably all be dead before we get the chance to figure out if 2022-23 was a bum winter because of climate change, or more likely that's something we'll never know with any kind of certainty.

(And mini-rant here, but I'm not terribly concerned with offending peoples' "sensibilities" on a topic such as this on a weather board; it has been artificially politicized.)

[KPITSnow]

12 hours ago, TimB said:

I’m not entirely certain he’s denying it, but rather (correctly) pointing out that this garbage winter can’t be completely 100% attributed to it. The patterns are pretty stark, but the last two winters were fine.

I agree, climate change can’t be viewed on such a small scale, but I think that over the last 10-15 years it certainly anecdotally feels way warmer than when I was growing up. A 60 degree day in February growing up was a really unique occasion and now seems to happen much more often

[KPITSnow]

2 hours ago, RitualOfTheTrout said:

It can't be 100% attributed to any one storm or season. Climate change will make bad patterns even worse, ie to your data points maybe 100 years ago a bad winter pattern would yield 5 inches of snow on the season and 2 70 degree days, but now its 2 inches of snow and 6 70 degree days. This pattern would suck in any era relative to normal. Does climate change play a role in making these "bad" patterns more frequent or make the "good" ones less effective? Does it make past analogues with a marginal setup where we just squeaked by at 32 and had heavy snow now more likely to be an all out fail? Does it further reduce other forces that might mitigate a bad situation to make it workable for snow? Probably, but its going to take decades to see that trend in the data.

It's even likely that we see some sort of "sweet spot" were warmer more moisture laden atmosphere meets up with still cold enough planet to increase our snow averages. Maybe we are in that now, or getting to the tail end when its more likely going to be to warm, no way to know yet.

Admittedly I'm basing that on the idea that the change will be slow, at least relative to the scale of a human lifetime. Maybe that's wrong and once we get past a certain point exponentiation deterioration will rapidly put an end to winter weather in our area.  Point is I'd need to see several years to say this season is anything close to a "new normal".

 

Does it feel to you that there are many more borderline events that change over way faster or are plain rain as opposed to at least long mixing periods. I can’t remember the last time we had a good front end thump of four inches, then followed by hours of mixing before turning to rain.

 

I mean hell, I think of the December event last year where we had a near perfect track yet mixed most of the event. 

[Ahoff]

1 minute ago, KPITSnow said:

I agree, climate change can’t be viewed on such a small scale, but I think that over the last 10-15 years it certainly anecdotally feels way warmer than when I was growing up. A 60 degree day in February growing up was a really unique occasion and now seems to happen much more often

I disagree, a 60 degree day in February, or January, or December has never felt odd to me.  It has literally happened almost every year.  There's a reason every winter month has a mean max of over 60, because that's not unusual.  It's honestly really annoying when the news casters always act like they can't believe it's 60 degrees in winter.  It happens every year.