Pittsburgh, Pa Winter 2023-24 Thread.

[RitualOfTheTrout]

15 hours ago, jwilson said:

I think anything we might score in terms of snowfall before Valentine's Day would be considered a bonus given the overall pattern.

There's an interesting Omega Block setting up around the 7th that's worth keeping an eye on as long as it stays.  Getting the requisite cold is going to require an anomalous low, in all likelihood (meaning something really wrapped up).

Big issues right now are +EPO, +AO, and +NAO keeping the cold out of North America.  The MJO is supposedly dying in Phase 7 which isn't ideal, but that's the lesser of the problems.

The velocity of the pattern change is what remains our big question.  Do we get sufficient movement by President's Day?  Late February is one of those odd times where big storms seem much less common, then March becomes the coin-flip month.

It's not looking great, going to take near perfect chain of events for that to work out for anyone really. It's just to warm even if you get a good track. It's an interesting look at 500 on the maps, but all the indices being in the wrong phase all but guarantee futility baring a fluke.

I must admit I was dead wrong on this period. A 7-10 day thaw was inevitable. I thought by now we would be on the heels of the pattern getting better again in the first week of Feb. Instead, staring down the barrel of flushing 4 prime weeks of winter climo down the toilet and that assumes things "get good" by the 14th. By that time the entire east coast is putting all their eggs in a 2-3 week period to score a couple big storms to salvage the season, and unless we really get on some sort of heater going to be hard to please everyone.

[TimB]

Well we already lost the snow for next weekend, but now it seems we’ve lost the cold too. Even the “cold” part of the pattern is warm and dry.

[TheClimateChanger]

2 hours ago, TimB said:

Actually even more than that. We’re already at +3.9. Looking at the forecast to close out the month, could be +4.2 or 4.3.

Also climbing on this list. I know people hate when I do this, but it's just a fact. I included enough years to get to 2002, as that was the prior warmest December & January combo observed at KPIT. Despite no recent years being particularly close to Top 10 warmest for December & January, torchy Februarys in 2017 and last year have those winter seasons at 10th warmest [tied with 1918-19 & 1997-98] and 8th warmest, respectively.

 

 

 

[KPITSnow]

32 minutes ago, TimB said:

Well we already lost the snow for next weekend, but now it seems we’ve lost the cold too. Even the “cold” part of the pattern is warm and dry.

We are running out of time very fast 

[TimB]

1 minute ago, KPITSnow said:

We are running out of time very fast 

It’s going to be an uphill climb to even get this winter into the category of “pretty bad but not abysmal” like a 2016-17 or a 2018-19 as opposed to a 2019-20 or a 2022-23.

[TimB]

Latest GFS suggests we never see the troughing and instead get a portion of the ridge. An above normal period in that Feb 1-5 timeframe suddenly seems alive and well again. This is comical. Another embarrassing model fail less than 6 days out.

[KPITSnow]

1 hour ago, TimB said:

Latest GFS suggests we never see the troughing and instead get a portion of the ridge. An above normal period in that Feb 1-5 timeframe suddenly seems alive and well again. This is comical. Another embarrassing model fail less than 6 days out.

Shouldn’t be shocked. This happened constantly last winter. 

[KPITSnow]

I’m also not going to lie, took the train to New York yesterday and the fact I could see snow piles all through to the nw Philly burbs and even in to Philly told me they got a lot more snow than we did. I asked on the cpa thread and someone there got 18.5 over two weeks. 
 

I know some of you cashed in on that lake band but for the rest of us we might ge sitting under 10 inches for the year 

[TheClimateChanger]

2 hours ago, TimB said:

It’s going to be an uphill climb to even get this winter into the category of “pretty bad but not abysmal” like a 2016-17 or a 2018-19 as opposed to a 2019-20 or a 2022-23.

Would be crazy if we had two straight sub-20" winters at the airport. That was one of the few redeeming qualities of the Pittsburgh climate noted during the March 2018 storm. I was looking at that thread a couple weeks ago, trying to find some of our most recent, bigger storms. On the plus side, one frequent complaint in that thread was the I-95 corridor getting clobbered all the time, and that activity seems to have died down in recent years.

[TheClimateChanger]

5 minutes ago, KPITSnow said:

I’m also not going to lie, took the train to New York yesterday and the fact I could see snow piles all through to the nw Philly burbs and even in to Philly told me they got a lot more snow than we did. I asked on the cpa thread and someone there got 18.5 over two weeks. 
 

I know some of you cashed in on that lake band but for the rest of us we might ge sitting under 10 inches for the year 

There were definitely still some piles near my place in some of the larger parking lots, at least until Friday or Saturday morning.

[TimB]

2 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

Would be crazy if we had two straight sub-20" winters at the airport. That was one of the few redeeming qualities of the Pittsburgh climate noted during the March 2018 storm. I was looking at that thread a couple weeks ago, trying to find some of our most recent, bigger storms. On the plus side, one frequent complaint in that thread was the I-95 corridor getting clobbered all the time, and that activity seems to have died down in recent years.

Yeah, now no one east of the Rockies is winning (except maybe outliers like Buffalo and Minneapolis last winter), but that’s almost worse because it gives little signs of hope.

[jwilson]

7 hours ago, RitualOfTheTrout said:

It's not looking great, going to take near perfect chain of events for that to work out for anyone really. It's just to warm even if you get a good track. It's an interesting look at 500 on the maps, but all the indices being in the wrong phase all but guarantee futility baring a fluke.

I must admit I was dead wrong on this period. A 7-10 day thaw was inevitable. I thought by now we would be on the heels of the pattern getting better again in the first week of Feb. Instead, staring down the barrel of flushing 4 prime weeks of winter climo down the toilet and that assumes things "get good" by the 14th. By that time the entire east coast is putting all their eggs in a 2-3 week period to score a couple big storms to salvage the season, and unless we really get on some sort of heater going to be hard to please everyone.

I'm repeating myself a bit here, but my expectations for this winter were set at 30" based on historical analogs.  That was basically the ceiling for Pittsburgh during +2.0 Nino events (we peaked at +1.9, I think, but that's hair-splitting).  It's a below average winter for us, by far, but since my expectations were relatively low, I'm not too surprised by how things have gone.  My only inkling was that maybe we'd hit a big storm this year - and that would essentially be the source of most of our season's snowfall.  I'm generally fine with such an outcome.

The eight years it has been since a 20" storm is the longest I've gone in my life not seeing something of that magnitude.

It's obvious by now that this wasn't going to be a wall-to-wall winter with infinite opportunities.  I guess chances might favor we get a repeat of January with a 14-day threat window where cold and precipitation align.  Like you, I don't necessarily care as much once we get into March, but March is quite capable of producing big winter events.  Just two years ago Pittsburgh got >17" in March, but someone will have to fill in the blanks for me because I don't remember how that happened (2022 was a weird year for me).  Pittsburgh's biggest storm ever was in March, of course, but I guess since that was such a fluke thing it's mostly irrelevant.  Only point being that even if we end up moving the window later in February or back into March, there's still chances to be had.  Our window is open a bit longer than places south and east.

[TimB]

17 minutes ago, jwilson said:

I'm repeating myself a bit here, but my expectations for this winter were set at 30" based on historical analogs.  That was basically the ceiling for Pittsburgh during +2.0 Nino events (we peaked at +1.9, I think, but that's hair-splitting).  It's a below average winter for us, by far, but since my expectations were relatively low, I'm not too surprised by how things have gone.  My only inkling was that maybe we'd hit a big storm this year - and that would essentially be the source of most of our season's snowfall.  I'm generally fine with such an outcome.

The eight years it has been since a 20" storm is the longest I've gone in my life not seeing something of that magnitude.

It's obvious by now that this wasn't going to be a wall-to-wall winter with infinite opportunities.  I guess chances might favor we get a repeat of January with a 14-day threat window where cold and precipitation align.  Like you, I don't necessarily care as much once we get into March, but March is quite capable of producing big winter events.  Just two years ago Pittsburgh got >17" in March, but someone will have to fill in the blanks for me because I don't remember how that happened (2022 was a weird year for me).  Pittsburgh's biggest storm ever was in March, of course, but I guess since that was such a fluke thing it's mostly irrelevant.  Only point being that even if we end up moving the window later in February or back into March, there's still chances to be had.  Our window is open a bit longer than places south and east.

March 2022 had that storm that dropped like 9” overnight on a weekend and it was well into the 60s by midweek, then I think a smaller event very late in the month, followed by a 36 hour period where we went from a low of 14 one morning to a high of 76 the next day. It was one of those rare Marches where we got lots of snow despite it being decisively above normal temperature-wise on the whole.

[Burghblizz]

1 hour ago, jwilson said:

I'm repeating myself a bit here, but my expectations for this winter were set at 30" based on historical analogs.  That was basically the ceiling for Pittsburgh during +2.0 Nino events (we peaked at +1.9, I think, but that's hair-splitting).  It's a below average winter for us, by far, but since my expectations were relatively low, I'm not too surprised by how things have gone.  My only inkling was that maybe we'd hit a big storm this year - and that would essentially be the source of most of our season's snowfall.  I'm generally fine with such an outcome.

The eight years it has been since a 20" storm is the longest I've gone in my life not seeing something of that magnitude.

It's obvious by now that this wasn't going to be a wall-to-wall winter with infinite opportunities.  I guess chances might favor we get a repeat of January with a 14-day threat window where cold and precipitation align.  Like you, I don't necessarily care as much once we get into March, but March is quite capable of producing big winter events.  Just two years ago Pittsburgh got >17" in March, but someone will have to fill in the blanks for me because I don't remember how that happened (2022 was a weird year for me).  Pittsburgh's biggest storm ever was in March, of course, but I guess since that was such a fluke thing it's mostly irrelevant.  Only point being that even if we end up moving the window later in February or back into March, there's still chances to be had.  Our window is open a bit longer than places south and east.

March ‘22 had an 8”  ish storm around around the 12th, and then a very active LES pattern even into the latter part of the month. So it was a good month, although lots of melting in between events. But hey, it was March.

Other thing I remember is someone (I think Ahoff) started a spring thread in February since it was sucking. Must have worked as a reverse jinx as we finished strong. Threaded the needle nicely on the bigger storm as this long area of precip trained for awhile

[Ahoff]

1 hour ago, Burghblizz said:

March ‘22 had an 8”  ish storm around around the 12th, and then a very active LES pattern even into the latter part of the month. So it was a good month, although lots of melting in between events. But hey, it was March.

Other thing I remember is someone (I think Ahoff) started a spring thread in February since it was sucking. Must have worked as a reverse jinx as we finished strong. Threaded the needle nicely on the bigger storm as this long area of precip trained for awhile

I’ll start a Spring thread tomorrow.

[Rd9108]

If we are done being miserable all ensembles now agree on the pattern changing around Feb 14 fwiw. Still early enough to get excited but the signal is there FOR NOW.

[TimB]

11 minutes ago, Rd9108 said:

If we are done being miserable all ensembles now agree on the pattern changing around Feb 14 fwiw. Still early enough to get excited but the signal is there FOR NOW.

Hard to be miserable when it’s going to be 53 and sunny this weekend. Hope you get to golf.

[CoraopolisWx]

Folks are still optimistic about mid February based on the guidance. 
The 12z gfs even showed a little love at the end of the run. 

[CoraopolisWx]

‘

[CoraopolisWx]

Not many analog years for a second half February comeback. 
The only one that comes to mind is 1993. 
And even without the two big storms that season, we still managed about 35”. 
 

[jwilson]

We're still really a week to 10 days out from determining the extent of the pattern change.  By that point, we'll be much closer to the transition period to see if things still progress as long-range guidance implies.  Ensembles haven't budged much.

The mid-week Omega Block didn't work out because we basically have a double-ridge that moved too far to the East, which blocks the trough out into the western Atlantic.  Sort of a trend this year - we can't get the boundary interaction and timing exactly where we want it.

We'll have to deal with at least one cutter, I would think, before the shift in the block and jets.

Right now it's just a waiting game.

[TimB]

Let’s hope this pattern change actually happens and produces for us. I’m not sure I can bear the endless heat and humidity from April through October after another snowless winter.

[Burghblizz]

1 hour ago, jwilson said:

We're still really a week to 10 days out from determining the extent of the pattern change.  By that point, we'll be much closer to the transition period to see if things still progress as long-range guidance implies.  Ensembles haven't budged much.

The mid-week Omega Block didn't work out because we basically have a double-ridge that moved too far to the East, which blocks the trough out into the western Atlantic.  Sort of a trend this year - we can't get the boundary interaction and timing exactly where we want it.

We'll have to deal with at least one cutter, I would think, before the shift in the block and jets.

Right now it's just a waiting game.

Good assessment. I’m going to try to enjoy some longer walks with the dog, and hope for a kick ass final 5-6 weeks.

[RitualOfTheTrout]

5 hours ago, jwilson said:

We're still really a week to 10 days out from determining the extent of the pattern change.  By that point, we'll be much closer to the transition period to see if things still progress as long-range guidance implies.  Ensembles haven't budged much.

The mid-week Omega Block didn't work out because we basically have a double-ridge that moved too far to the East, which blocks the trough out into the western Atlantic.  Sort of a trend this year - we can't get the boundary interaction and timing exactly where we want it.

We'll have to deal with at least one cutter, I would think, before the shift in the block and jets.

Right now it's just a waiting game.

That and that wave out in the pacific is kicking the sw out into the Atlantic. This could have been a pretty decent storm, maybe not us, had things aligned a bit better. Another missed opportunity. 

Otherwise I agree, we've got at least a week before there might be something to track, by then the specifics of the pattern change should be more ironed out as well. For now, we are just tracking that the good pattern doesn't start to degrade as it moves up in time or get kicked further into Feb.

Another round of blocking might argue the good look sticks around longer than what we had in January, but strong ninos usually favor a warm March so I'm definitely not sold on some 4 week wall to wall winter period setting in either. At least it looks dry AND warm-ish for the next 10 days.

[blackngoldrules]

Good assessment. I’m going to try to enjoy some longer walks with the dog, and hope for a kick ass final 5-6 weeks.

Yeah, you gotta try and take the positive out of it. It's out of our control anyway. I have some things I need to do on my truck and I'm not working for another 12 days. Starting a new job. So, I'll take advantage of it not being brutally cold at least and the days starting to get a little longer now. It'll be a little easier on the heating bill. No salt stuck to our cars eating away at them. It's all how you look at things. I really enjoyed that snow a couple weeks ago, but I'm OK with this too.

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

[TimB]

This is actually pretty wild (KPIT era, 1952-present):

[TimB]

Even if every day the rest of February gets below freezing (almost impossible with next week’s warmup), we’d still be in first place.

[jwilson]

5 hours ago, TimB said:

Even if every day the rest of February gets below freezing (almost impossible with next week’s warmup), we’d still be in first place.

Thus far, it is the warmest winter in modern or recent history.  The only dates beating it are from 1890, 1932, and 1880, so for me that data is incongruous and largely irrelevant.

The other contemporary date in the Top-10 is from last year, unsurprisingly.

[KPITSnow]

7 hours ago, TimB said:

This is actually pretty wild (KPIT era, 1952-present):

Well, this list certainly lends credence to the idea cold periods are less sustained, even if extremes are still there. 
 

the fact ten of these are this century, one is in 1999, and four of the top 5 are in the last ten years really is pretty eye opening. 

[TheClimateChanger]

1 hour ago, KPITSnow said:

Well, this list certainly lends credence to the idea cold periods are less sustained, even if extremes are still there. 
 

the fact ten of these are this century, one is in 1999, and four of the top 5 are in the last ten years really is pretty eye opening.