Pittsburgh, Pa Summer 2024 Thread.

[north pgh]

Sun is out. I think we will have some redevelopment of storms but more scattered and less severe. Nice breeze picking up too but still very humid. 

[Mailman]

But what do I know...

 

US National Weather Service Pittsburgh PA 

4:10 PM - There is a lull in activity over eastern OH into western PA, but we're expecting some environmental "recovery" in the next hour or so as clouds break across the area. Isolated to scattered storms may redevelop in this area in the next several hours, so the Watch continues.

[Rd9108]

Hopefully any storms that materialize just have a lot of lighting and no wind. 

[Rd9108]

On 6/28/2024 at 2:19 PM, TimB said:

Anecdotal, but I feel like we do better on days that are less hyped.

Looks like this may hold true today. 

[KPITSnow]

I don’t know. Really loooe like we may dodge a bullet 

[Rd9108]

I love how people on facebook are complaining that NWS made them cancel their plans but their "fear mongering" and "hyping". 

[KPITSnow]

The central pa office has dropped the eastern part of the watch leaving a weird two county gap. I’d imagine ours is dropped soon 

[TheClimateChanger]

Weird. You would think with temperatures in the mid 80s, and dewpoints in the low to mid 70s, radar would be lighting up. I’m not complaining though. Glad we didn’t get that 1 to locally 4 inches of rain.

[jwilson]

Too much cloud cover earlier meant the more favorable areas for development were further to the East, I think.

Then when convection fired there, it sort of sucked all the energy out of our area and resulted in diverging/sinking air over us, which caps potential development.

This is a pretty familiar course of events.  Our hyped days are often undone by clouds or adjacent areas having better conditions and we get dry air otherwise.

[north pgh]

Could have used a little more rain today for the grass. Picked up .32 in a downpour this morning but that was it. 

[TimB]

Man, that low of 77 this morning would have held and tied the all time record for Pittsburgh International if not for that stupid mid-morning thunderstorm that dropped us to 73.

[TheClimateChanger]

Looks like our streak of 80+ high temperatures will end tomorrow at 19 days, and then another streak begins Tuesday.

[TimB]

NWS explicitly forecasting a low of 53 at PIT tonight. I’m skeptical we get there, but we haven’t been to 53 or lower in July since 2014 (we got there every July from 1976-2003 and in 52 out of the first 62 Julys observed at the airport through 2014).

[pawatch]

High of 90 yesterday ,Boy was it humid.

Picked up .30” of rain yesterday off of a pop up storm.

60 degrees this morning and it sounds like it’s gonna be pretty windy today. 30mph gusts 

[TimB]

Looks like PIT bottomed out at 54, so it’s likely we’ll go a 10th straight July without getting to 53 or lower, which is again something that used to happen nearly every July.

[north pgh]

It was 51 at my house this morning. 

[TimB]

Yes, plenty of places got into the lower 50s this morning. But those places were likely also 3-4 degrees colder than the airport in years past when temperatures at the airport got to levels nearly every July that haven’t been reached in July in a decade.

[TimB]

Here’s 1976-2023:

 

40s in July occurred 9 out of 12 years from 1977-1988 and 14 out of 34 years from 1977-2010, so about once every 2-3 years over that timespan. It’s now been 14 years since we’ve gotten into the 40s in July and I wouldn’t be surprised if none of us see that again in our lifetime.

[TheClimateChanger]

1 hour ago, TimB said:

Here’s 1976-2023:

 

40s in July occurred 9 out of 12 years from 1977-1988 and 14 out of 34 years from 1977-2010, so about once every 2-3 years over that timespan. It’s now been 14 years since we’ve gotten into the 40s in July and I wouldn’t be surprised if none of us see that again in our lifetime.

Interesting. The funny thing about 2014 is it tied two daily record lows, and set one, despite not going below 50F. Only 7 days in the month of July have record lows above 50F, and it managed to find three of those low-hanging fruit days with timely cold fronts. If your suspicion is correct, daily record low minima in the month of July may permanently be a thing of the past. Not that record lows are common at any time of the year these days.

[TheClimateChanger]

26 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

Interesting. The funny thing about 2014 is it tied two daily record lows, and set one, despite not going below 50F. Only 7 days in the month of July have record lows above 50F, and it managed to find three of those low-hanging fruit days with timely cold fronts. If your suspicion is correct, daily record low minima in the month of July may permanently be a thing of the past. Not that record lows are common at any time of the year these days.

I will say it's actually kind of crazy how quickly things are warming these days.

1991-2020

2001-2024 [nearly 80% of the way through the next climate average period]

Note: The 52.3 mean includes the mean of 52.6 for the first 6 months of 2024. This will certainly rise since the second half of the year is invariably warmer than the first [every month is warmer than its analog, i.e. July -> June through December -> January], and likely finish between 53 and 55F. But given it's averaged over 24 years, would likely only push us up a tenth of a degree at most. Nevertheless, likely that once 2024 is fully included, the 24 year running mean will climb to 52.4F, or about 0.4F above the 1991-2020 average.

And for the period that will be coming in 2040, obviously not even 50% of the way through so subject to major changes. But does anyone truly believe 2025-2040 will be cooler than 2011-2024 on the whole? Also see comment above, when 2024 is fully factored in, it's likely to be at least 52.8, and possibly as high as 53.0F. Here, the final tally is being averaged across only 14 years. The 14-year running mean is thus likely to be between 0.8F and 1.0F above the 1991-2020 mean.

2011-2024

My takeaway: At this point, each climate update is shooting up 0.5F or more over the prior period. Which, when you consider that each climate period includes 2/3 of the prior, means the decade is 1.5F warmer than the one it is replacing. It becomes doubly insane when you recollect to the 1990s and many of these people saying it was due to a "warm cycle." In other words, the periods being replaced were not unusually cold, but rather considered to be unusually warm at the time. I'm also old enough to remember being told it's warmed like a degree over 100 years, and not 1.5F degrees every 30 years.

[TheClimateChanger]

19 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

The 14-year running mean is thus likely to be between 0.8F and 1.0F above the 1991-2020 mean.

This is probably the most insane stat in that post. A 14-year running mean of 52.8F to 53.0F would be 0.8 to 1.0F above the 1991-2020 mean. It would also be 2.5 to 2.7F above the 1961-1990 mean, which was 1.7F lower than the 1991-2020 mean.

[TheClimateChanger]

 

[TimB]

Another 90 in the bag, brings us to 6 on the season. Most since 2020.

[TheClimateChanger]

6th day of 90+. Most through July 3 since 2012 (10). Only seven years have had more at Pittsburgh International Airport:

• 1966, 14
• 2012, 10
• 1994, 9
• 1991, 8
• 1988, 8
• 1967, 8
• 1962, 8

[TheClimateChanger]

With the warm start to July, met summer to date is up to 73.2F, which is 11th warmest in the threaded record, tied with 1994, 1991 and a couple of earlier years. Tied for warmest at Pittsburgh International Airport with 1994 & 1991, and warmest overall since 1943. Looking at the forecast for the next couple weeks, I think we have a shot at the hottest summer on record at the airport. Not going to be able to unseat any of those old city office records most likely.

Lots of heat out west and east. Raleigh / Durham reached an all-time record of 106F yesterday.

[TheClimateChanger]

19 hours ago, TheClimateChanger said:

With the warm start to July, met summer to date is up to 73.2F, which is 11th warmest in the threaded record, tied with 1994, 1991 and a couple of earlier years. Tied for warmest at Pittsburgh International Airport with 1994 & 1991, and warmest overall since 1943. Looking at the forecast for the next couple weeks, I think we have a shot at the hottest summer on record at the airport. Not going to be able to unseat any of those old city office records most likely.

Lots of heat out west and east. Raleigh / Durham reached an all-time record of 106F yesterday.

Actually after further analysis, I think a record hot summer in the entire threaded record is still possible - albeit remote. But in 2024, I wouldn't toss it out as a possibility. I feel like, despite the warm start, this is probably the cool period of July and the rest of the month might be even hotter. We are currently 1.5F above 1995 to date, which ended up 0.7F cooler than the mythical summer of 1900.  Obviously, expecting another August 1995 is a longshot. But I do think July this year is looking like it could put up a number like August 1995 or July 2020, when all is said and done.

[TimB]

1 hour ago, TheClimateChanger said:

Actually after further analysis, I think a record hot summer in the entire threaded record is still possible - albeit remote. But in 2024, I wouldn't toss it out as a possibility. I feel like, despite the warm start, this is probably the cool period of July and the rest of the month might be even hotter. We are currently 1.5F above 1995 to date, which ended up 0.7F cooler than the mythical summer of 1900.  Obviously, expecting another August 1995 is a longshot. But I do think July this year is looking like it could put up a number like August 1995 or July 2020, when all is said and done.

Already could be back in the mid 90s tomorrow and/or Tuesday, with nothing below normal in sight.

[TheClimateChanger]

7 hours ago, TimB said:

Already could be back in the mid 90s tomorrow and/or Tuesday, with nothing below normal in sight.

Today is a good example of how difficult it is to have a month warmer than 77F. Warm day - 89/65, but that’s only a mean of 77F. Much easier to do when the low is 70+.

Also considering it hit 89 today, the next two days look like sure 90+.

[TheClimateChanger]

Very comfortable dewpoints tomorrow. Most guidance in mid to upper 50s, but HRRR brings it down to upper 40s to around 50 area wide.

[TheClimateChanger]

Those HRRR temperatures though...