Pittsburgh, Pa Winter 2023-24 Thread.

[Ahoff]

10 minutes ago, ChalkHillSnowNut said:

I’m in the 1-3” zone but will believe it if I see it in the morning….

Best way to do it.  Wait and see.

[TimB]

8 hours ago, Ahoff said:

We're literally like 4-5" below average right now, not 20".  We know crappy Decembers don't mean a crappy winter (see '14-'15.  This is not a really snowy time of year normally anyway, I mean it is December the 10th, can we give it even a little bit of a chance at this point?

If the nearest cold air wasn’t way on the other side of the pole and we weren’t at 21 months since our last advisory event it’d be easier to have faith.

[TimB]

Also need to note that we set a record warm daily min with yesterday’s low of 52. I didn’t even realize.

[Rd9108]

40 minutes ago, TimB said:

If the nearest cold air wasn’t way on the other side of the pole and we weren’t at 21 months since our last advisory event it’d be easier to have faith.

I mean you're not wrong. The nation is just getting pounded by pacific air. We need the arctic air to show up or it's gonna be a long boring winter. It's only December but we need to start seeing signs now. 

[TimB]

Squinting at this trying to figure out where the cold is going to come from and how many inches of snowfall deficit we’ll have to make up at that point if the cold does come.

 

[TimB]

The first 10 days of December averaged 46.2 degrees at PIT, good for 8th all time and 6 degrees warmer than the first 10 days of December 2015. Combine that with the map above, and, well, you know where this is going.

[Rd9108]

Winter is cooked until January. Everybody enjoy the holidays and if the pattern changes it changes. Nothing you can do at this point. As of right now it doesn't look good for any sustained winter weather. 

[TimB]

The other weather of note is that despite how much the NWS was hyping up rain amounts for this past weekend, PIT ended up with 0.09”.

[PghPirates27]

Looks mild and dry the next 10-14 days.

[TheClimateChanger]

2 hours ago, TimB said:

The first 10 days of December averaged 46.2 degrees at PIT, good for 8th all time and 6 degrees warmer than the first 10 days of December 2015. Combine that with the map above, and, well, you know where this is going.

Not out of the question that we could surpass 2012 for warmest year on record since the official observation site moved out of the city, and warmest overall in the threaded record since 1931. The odds are certainly increasing.

[TimB]

1 minute ago, TheClimateChanger said:

Not out of the question that we could surpass 2012 for warmest year on record since the official observation site moved out of the city, and warmest overall in the threaded record since 1931. The odds are certainly increasing.

I was looking at that. The years currently ahead of this year all had cold periods in mid to late December.

[TheClimateChanger]

11 minutes ago, TimB said:

I was looking at that. The years currently ahead of this year all had cold periods in mid to late December.

Averaging by month (which applies the current mean for December), we have a 0.5F cushion over 2016, 2012, 1991 & 1949. That means the final monthly mean could fall off a full 6F [6/12 = 0.5] and we'd still tie those years using monthly averaging. I'm kind of doubting December's mean falls off that much over the next three weeks given the current modeling. Note using daily averaging, 2012, 1991 & 1949 bump up one place with a mean of 54.3F.

[Ahoff]

Guess we should just close up this winter thread then and open the Spring one, since this winter’s over.  Darn.

[TimB]

21 minutes ago, Ahoff said:

Guess we should just close up this winter thread then and open the Spring one, since this winter’s over.  Darn.

If we closed last year’s winter thread on 12/11 we wouldn’t have lost anything.

[Ahoff]

39 minutes ago, TimB said:

If we closed last year’s winter thread on 12/11 we wouldn’t have lost anything.

Are you the new KPIT, lol?

[TheClimateChanger]

Even the NWS is punting the rest of December:

 

[TheClimateChanger]

On the plus side, looks like we may have a green Christmas this year instead of the more typical brown.

 

[Ahoff]

46 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

Even the NWS is punting the rest of December:

 

At least they are always very accurate with their forecasts, especially in the last 24 hours of one, lol.

[KPITSnow]

I think the lack of 2-4 type clipper events is the worst part. We would at least always get those even with no big storms but these last two winters have been brutal 

[RitualOfTheTrout]

4 hours ago, KPITSnow said:

I think the lack of 2-4 type clipper events is the worst part. We would at least always get those even with no big storms but these last two winters have been brutal 

We've always nickle and dime'ed our way to the averages-ish, with a bigger storm thrown in there every couple years (look at the frequency of 5+ 8+ 12+ storms in the records) so I agree not having those 1-3 / 2-4 clippers and NW flow LES setups has really made winters lately seems worse than they are from a bigger storm perspective.

Beginning of December the mid to late month period looked much better than at least what it appears reality will bare. Still not a total shutout look, but also not out of the question we are way below average by Jan. If the good looks keep getting pushed back we will quickly find ourselves in a hope for one big storm winter again. Still not out of the question we have a second half turn around, but the clock is ticking.

[blackngoldrules]

Of course it would track like this with no cold air at all. Lol

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

[Ahoff]

6 hours ago, blackngoldrules said:

Of course it would track like this with no cold air at all. Lol

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk
 

Could be good later, when there is cold.

[TimB]

Looks like we dropped to 25 this morning. First 20s of December. The only other year that failed to get into the 20s from 12/1 to 12/12 was 1923.

[Rd9108]

Gfs shows Christmas/Eve being stlast cold. No snow but cold atleast.

[RitualOfTheTrout]

5 hours ago, Rd9108 said:

Gfs shows Christmas/Eve being stlast cold. No snow but cold atleast.

Still looks pretty changeable on the various ENS means, not saying it means snow but wall to wall torch no guarantee either heading towards next weekend.

On an unrelated note, saw a stat 2023 is vying for second least snowy year on record at 12 inches. 

[TheClimateChanger]

 

 

[Burghblizz]

Interesting that they are trying to validate official readings through a car thermometer (I feel like mine always reads warm)

And wow as far as 2023 total snowfall.  That’s a 100 year type anomaly on the low side. And We very well could get shut out the rest of the way. 

[CoraopolisWx]

IMHO, we can assume the majority of the precip Sun/Mon will be rain. 
However if we can get some colder 850’s to arrive earlier than modeled, then during the heaviest rates some very low ratio snow could fall at times. 
Probably our only shot right know. 

[Ahoff]

So...looks like the El Nino is ending?

[TheClimateChanger]

Meteor shower tonight. I’ve seen two in the last 15 minutes.