Pittsburgh/Western PA Summer 2023

[jwilson]

Next week looks like a repeat of this week with the low further south.  Kind of a depressing pattern if that holds up.  Figured we'd pay for that nice stretch of weather at some point.

[Ahoff]

After an historic stretch of dry weather, we are (were) nearly 5" below average for precip.  I'm not sure I remember a time being that far behind.  Hope there is some quick pattern shakeup and we aren't stuck with 60 degrees and rainy the remainder of the month.  That would be epically bad.

[TimB]

2 minutes ago, Ahoff said:

After an historic stretch of dry weather, we are (were) nearly 5" below average for precip.  I'm not sure I remember a time being that far behind.  Hope there is some quick pattern shakeup and we aren't stuck with 60 degrees and rainy the remainder of the month.  That would be epically bad.

If I had to bet, I’ll bet against having 18 straight days of 60 degrees and rainy in June.

[Ahoff]

18 minutes ago, TimB said:

If I had to bet, I’ll bet against having 18 straight days of 60 degrees and rainy in June.

I'm exaggerating a bit.  I don't think it will be 60 everyday, but frequent 60s and rain into the end of the month would really put a damper on the start of summer.

[north pgh]

I picked up .09 yesterday and .38 today. Much needed and more to come later tomorrow.

Temp is holding at a cool 63.

[jwilson]

22 hours ago, Ahoff said:

I'm exaggerating a bit.  I don't think it will be 60 everyday, but frequent 60s and rain into the end of the month would really put a damper on the start of summer.

Looks like that's the pattern for the foreseeable future.  Hudson Bay highs with everything rotating underneath and cutoff.  Probably 3-4 weeks at least.  I'm guessing by the end we'll have made up for most (if not all) of the deficit.

[Ahoff]

34 minutes ago, jwilson said:

Looks like that's the pattern for the foreseeable future.  Hudson Bay highs with everything rotating underneath and cutoff.  Probably 3-4 weeks at least.  I'm guessing by the end we'll have made up for most (if not all) of the deficit.

It'll be a shitty summer then.  Great.

[meatwad]

The only thing good is it'll prob be a weaker hurricane season, hopefully.

[PghPirates27]

What does this new pattern mean for winter if it holds? (El nino)

[TheClimateChanger]

This can't be normal, can it? How can it be in the mid and upper 90s on the coast of James Bay and the south end of Hudson Bay, and in the 70s here? 

[Ahoff]

4 hours ago, TheClimateChanger said:

This can't be normal, can it? How can it be in the mid and upper 90s on the coast of James Bay and the south end of Hudson Bay, and in the 70s here? 

I believe it can happen, and bet it will, lol.

[MikeB_01]

This can't be normal, can it? How can it be in the mid and upper 90s on the coast of James Bay and the south end of Hudson Bay, and in the 70s here? 

I’m not sure how reliable that data is. The AWS had a major outage today that was causing some weird things with the data.


.

[north pgh]

Severe thunderstorms over north central Ohio. I'm sure they will weaken but it would be nice to get some thunder overnight. It's been a while.

[RitualOfTheTrout]

Found tonights NWS discussion to be confusingly entertaining. 

.SHORT TERM /6 AM FRIDAY MORNING THROUGH SUNDAY NIGHT/...
The surface trough will not swiftly pull away Friday as its
fearless progression slows in an attempt to occlude and
collocate under the upper low. If you are concerned about
rainfall, we will take a moment to speak now on it: upper-level
dry air reinforcement behind the cold/occluded front should
limit high- QPF rainfall into the day. With showers only
resulting from a reinforcing shot of cold air aloft overriding
higher humidity surface conditions following diurnal temperature
trends, our precipitation deficit will stay in the red. So far,
we are 0.66 inches short of our mid-month average rainfall.
While we will not have the driest June on record, we will
certainly not match the record 10.29 inches the area received in
June of 1989. Though the region has had a recent reputation of
being dry, shower activity will persist in Pennsylvania and West
Virginia through the afternoon, with the best shortwave-
enforced ascent. If you are a dry weather lover, good news!
Friday will not be a washout, with only isolated to scattered
showers decreasing toward evening as the trough pulls away.
This un-notable weather will not go down as folklore, with dry
and typical conditions returning evermore (or at least until
next week). There is moderate to high confidence in dry
conditions late Friday evening through midnight for anyone who
may happen to be outside for one reason or another.

There is high confidence that the upper trough develops into a
closed low over the weekend over the northeast. This will return
north-northwesterly flow aloft, and stream down drier Canadian
air. An approaching surface high will leave conditions pleasant
over the weekend with mostly clear skies and seasonable
temperatures.

[TimB]

6 minutes ago, RitualOfTheTrout said:

Found tonights NWS discussion to be confusingly entertaining. 

.SHORT TERM /6 AM FRIDAY MORNING THROUGH SUNDAY NIGHT/...
The surface trough will not swiftly pull away Friday as its
fearless progression slows in an attempt to occlude and
collocate under the upper low. If you are concerned about
rainfall, we will take a moment to speak now on it: upper-level
dry air reinforcement behind the cold/occluded front should
limit high- QPF rainfall into the day. With showers only
resulting from a reinforcing shot of cold air aloft overriding
higher humidity surface conditions following diurnal temperature
trends, our precipitation deficit will stay in the red. So far,
we are 0.66 inches short of our mid-month average rainfall.
While we will not have the driest June on record, we will
certainly not match the record 10.29 inches the area received in
June of 1989. Though the region has had a recent reputation of
being dry, shower activity will persist in Pennsylvania and West
Virginia through the afternoon, with the best shortwave-
enforced ascent. If you are a dry weather lover, good news!
Friday will not be a washout, with only isolated to scattered
showers decreasing toward evening as the trough pulls away.
This un-notable weather will not go down as folklore, with dry
and typical conditions returning evermore (or at least until
next week). There is moderate to high confidence in dry
conditions late Friday evening through midnight for anyone who
may happen to be outside for one reason or another.

There is high confidence that the upper trough develops into a
closed low over the weekend over the northeast. This will return
north-northwesterly flow aloft, and stream down drier Canadian
air. An approaching surface high will leave conditions pleasant
over the weekend with mostly clear skies and seasonable
temperatures.

It’s worse when you realize what they did there.

[PghPirates27]

They managed to get 9 of them in there out of 10.

[Ahoff]

Gross day out there.  This month looks like it'll end up below normal as well.

[Ahoff]

What's the difference between the Euro IFS HREs and the Euro IFS?  I mean , one's high res, and the other isn't, but they are pretty different, at least temperature wise through next week.

[KPITSnow]

On 6/13/2023 at 12:26 PM, Ahoff said:

It'll be a shitty summer then.  Great.

Dude, it’s an awesome summer. 70-80 all the time? 80’s and humidity are awful 

[TimB]

7 minutes ago, KPITSnow said:

Dude, it’s an awesome summer. 70-80 all the time? 80’s and humidity are awful 

Seconded. I have yet to run my air conditioning this summer.

[north pgh]

Humidity went away as fast as the snow did this winter. 

[Ahoff]

1 hour ago, KPITSnow said:

Dude, it’s an awesome summer. 70-80 all the time? 80’s and humidity are awful 

I was referring to the poster saying it was possible we'd see a cut off low sit over us for possibly up to a month and produce enough rain to make up the large deficit we are in.  If it does that, then the summer will be shitty.  So far, it's been beautiful.  If we have small interludes of cool and rain, like the past week, and long stretches of dry and warm, I'll be happy.

Never said I wanted humidity, have always been against it, so this is a great summer.  A little cooler than I'd like, but won't complain if it's mostly sunny.  Do wish the smoke would stop though, that's been ruining a few clear days for sure.

[jwilson]

The trough-in-the-East pattern still holds in the long-term.  It doesn't look supremely wet, though, so it's kind of a mixed bag (only 2" of rain through the end of the month).

The only real ridging in the conus is pretty narrowly focused over the central plains.  This pattern will limit the heat potential, which I guess most people prefer.  How much rain we end with is the question and if things change come July.

[Ahoff]

32 minutes ago, jwilson said:

The trough-in-the-East pattern still holds in the long-term.  It doesn't look supremely wet, though, so it's kind of a mixed bag (only 2" of rain through the end of the month).

The only real ridging in the conus is pretty narrowly focused over the central plains.  This pattern will limit the heat potential, which I guess most people prefer.  How much rain we end with is the question and if things change come July.

Long term, the CPC says the drought persists through September.  Looks dry, temps will be a question I guess.  But if we stay in a drought, temps should rise higher, despite the trough, but fall lower at night.

[TheClimateChanger]

Not super impressively ranked, and kind of cherrypicked on the date range, but it has been the 10th coldest mean minimum temperature on record for the period from May 1 through yesterday (6/18) at PIT. Obvious data quality concerns, the 1907 reading was from downtown, and the 1945 at AGC, and would likely rank higher if measured at the current observation site. On the flip side, the 1960s are probably overrepresented as the surroundings around the airport were still very rural then and the airport itself less developed.

[TimB]

23 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

Not super impressively ranked, and kind of cherrypicked on the date range, but it has been the 10th coldest mean minimum temperature on record for the period from May 1 through yesterday (6/18) at PIT. Obvious data quality concerns, the 1907 reading was from downtown, and the 1945 at AGC, and would likely rank higher if measured at the current observation site. On the flip side, the 1960s are probably overrepresented as the surroundings around the airport were still very rural then and the airport itself less developed.

I did this exercise for June 1-18 and we’re ranked 6th with a mean low of 53.0. This morning’s low of 55 should bump that average up to 53.1, but should still be enough to move past 1964 and 1974 into a tie for 4th with 1927.

 

Looking ahead, the warmer lows to close out the month should then push us back to 20th or so for the whole month.

[Ahoff]

The CPC extended outlooks, don’t look that great.  Cool and rainier.  We’ll see though.

[Gordo74]

That’s what it has been showing for a week and only two of the last week have been rainy, which has been nice. Overall, great start to summer with being extremely comfortable outside. Pools probably hurting a bit for attendance though.

[Ahoff]

Yesterday's low of 66 has been the warmest of the year so far.  Sunday night is forecast for a 66 degree low.  If that stays as the warmest low for the month it will be since 2006 the highest low in June was that cool.  Possible we do it too.

Also, May's warmest low was 60 that's the coolest maximum low in May since 2005.

[TimB]

3 hours ago, Ahoff said:

Yesterday's low of 66 has been the warmest of the year so far.  Sunday night is forecast for a 66 degree low.  If that stays as the warmest low for the month it will be since 2006 the highest low in June was that cool.  Possible we do it too.

Also, May's warmest low was 60 that's the coolest maximum low in May since 2005.

There are 11 years in the entire period of record that have made it past 6/30 without a low of 67 or higher. Incredibly, three of them somehow made it to August.

There’s also the summer of 1976, which recorded a low of 67 on June 15th and then never recorded a low of 68 or higher.