TimB

4 minutes ago, Bubbler86 said:

Wow, Duke's Basketball Season over due to Covid.  Lots of banter today but that was a shocker. 

Wonder if they would have done the same if they were 1st in the ACC and national title contenders rather than a 10th place in the ACC bubble team.

As I recall, however, last year at this time before everything got shut down, they were already talking about not playing in the tournament. So Duke errs on the side of caution.

3 minutes ago, canderson said:

It’s not an ethics concern, but it’s one less shot for the 80 year old who can’t drive there. It’s unavoidable (without forcing ID checks), but it does skew the original supply. 
 

PA has requested 400,000 vaccines this week and got half of it. But the think next week it’ll be closer. 

I also know of people who have flat out lied about being 1A, and they are monsters.

But this is a tough topic. I would argue that more densely populated counties have much more risk of covid spread and that they should be prioritized over rural counties in the rollout, but that’s also up for debate.

8 minutes ago, canderson said:

Yea, indeed. But that skews numbers down the line, especially when looking at both completed. 
 

Things are improving quickly. It doesn’t feel like it, but in two years we’ll look back at how quickly the vaccine ps are administered and be in awe. 
 

The other issue is people skipping the line/lying or a 28 year old in Philly making appointment in Lock Haven - it screws up the algorithm for a bit. 

Here’s a point open for debate on that matter. Someone I know in Pittsburgh went to a county in NW PA to get the vaccine because they qualified as 1A (under 40, obese but not morbidly so) because the rollout has been slow in Allegheny County. I don’t see that as an ethics concern, but maybe others do.

That said, the fact that any Pennsylvanians, let alone nearly 1 in 10, are vaccinated on the anniversary of the pandemic is incredibly impressive.

If it’s okay for a Western PA person to barge in here, I would note that 5th in vaccines given should be expected as the bare minimum for a state that is 5th in population as we are.

HRRR is an outlier but has performed well with these warm stretches, and suggests we could get to 74 today. Satellite shows broken clouds upstream over Ohio. I think we sneak past 70 this afternoon.

Edit: bust! No breaks in the clouds to be found.

22 minutes ago, Ahoff said:

I'd be floored if parts of the state received 4 feet of snow over the two weeks.

I second that, considering almost all of that is in the last 48 hours of the GFS’s run and isn’t continued in the 6z (and even if it were consistently in the model every day for the next week, we’d still be a week out). It’s for entertainment purposes only at this point.

That said, it’s certainly more entertaining to me to watch the GFS pile 4 feet of snow on St. Marys, PA than it is to watch the GFS pile 4 feet of snow on Denver.

Looks like 70 will have to wait, at least officially at KPIT. KAGC and many other sites in western PA hit 70 yesterday. We do have a solid shot at a daily record warm low depending on where we stand at 11:59 this evening.

I’d be remiss not to include this... 

26 minutes ago, Ahoff said:

Officially the warmest day of the year at 64.

Also this morning’s low of 45 officially ends the streak of days with a low temperature of 37 or lower at 101 days (3rd all time).

15 minutes ago, Mount Joy Snowman said:

Funny you bring that up, as I was just thinking about those old-time reports.  The only month in which Harrisburg has never recorded snowfall is September.  There were two occasions with a Trace amount in August -- 8/13/93 and 8/28/34.  There are a number of Trace reports for the months of May, June and July (even a .1" from July 1930 and a .2" in June of 1938), mostly from the 1920s through the 1950s.  I often wonder about the record keeping and standards that were in place back then but perhaps that is just my recency bias showing.  One can't help but wonder though if some of those old summer reports from Harrisburg weren't just graupel, hail, etc. that were mistakenly reported as snow.  It's just sooooooo hard to envision snow falling in Harrisburg in July ha.

Definitely hail on the 1993 occasion. High of 86, low of 65 with 1.86” of rain.

You look familiar, do I know you from somewhere? Oh right, we’ve become quite well acquainted with this pattern over the past several years.

20 hours ago, Hoosier said:

HRRR even has mid-upper 60s here tomorrow... warmer than other guidance but I wouldn't necessarily dismiss it entirely.  Have seen many times when early season warmth overperforms, whether it is due to the lack of vegetation or whatever.

This is entirely accurate, for whatever reason. This may be anecdotal or empirical, but having lived nearly my entire life (aside from a few years out west) in either the Ohio Valley or Upper Midwest - yes, I consider Pittsburgh the Ohio Valley because it technically is - it seems like when we’re talking about the first time in a calendar year to hit a temperature milestone (50, 60, 70, 80), especially in a pattern flip from cold to warm, a large number of those have occurred on days when temperatures outperformed most to all forecasts and model guidance.

Ah yes, this one. Maybe the 0z run will continue to show this Day 14 storm. Or maybe the 0z run will have us at 75 and sunny that day. Both are (equally?) possible. That said, the Para does have extreme anomalous cold in the same timeframe, just without the storm. We’ll find out soon.

Edit: all runs of today’s GFS and Para are not our friend on this. Extrapolating the Euro, it still seems possible. Even that seems questionable. But I think a snowfall that week is probably more likely than 75 and sunny at this point. Perhaps we’ll even see both with this tug of war between warm and cold.

Despite this waffling of the models, NWS CPC has below normal temps for all but the far southeast US and above normal precip for the east in the 8-14 day range. Doesn’t look like they’re putting much confidence in it either though.

I’ll bet we run a couple degrees either above or below average for the 3/15-3/21 period, with an inch or two of wet snow somewhere in there to pad the stats.

“At this range”... a D14 storm could probably have a bullseye over Des Moines or Charlotte or anywhere in between and have a fairly equal likelihood of bringing “the big one” to PA.

1 hour ago, Ahoff said:

My point is once we get into late March, I'm done with snow.  So, once it warms up next week, I'd like it to stay.

Meh. We have 7 warm months after March before it gets cold again (maybe 8, depending on what November does - and yes, I would say that April and October are warm months - though I’m open to differences in opinion on that). That’s plenty for me.

Also, I’ll take snow any day and month of the year we can get it, even if that means recording a trace in May like last year. Winter doesn’t last forever, but summer always seems to drag on forever. Maybe because it actually has the past several years - September has been a summer month every year in recent memory and you could say the same for May if you throw out the first half of the month last year.

16 minutes ago, Ahoff said:

Eh, at this point I'm good.  It's March, so I'm ready for a warm up.  Tuesday and Wednesday next week are looking nice.

I think a warm up next week is a fair compromise if we get the cold, stormy pattern the following week. Flow looks too zonal at that point though, so not counting on much.

I would argue that understanding the difference between a watch, warning, and advisory is a much more basic level of understanding meteorology than knowing the meaning of terms frequently used in area forecast discussions or being able to read maps generated by a weather model, and that in general, it’s probably necessary and not hard at all for any member of the general public to understand the difference between the three. Instead of dumbing the message down to suit the public, maybe expect that people educate themselves on what three very basic terms mean.

Some bonus snow flurries this afternoon - even if it’s a trace, “days it snowed” is now winning 71-53 against “days it didn’t snow” since Nov. 1.

21 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

We are close to the same age, I'm 37. It's often hard to sum each winter up let alone each decade. Huge climo buff here, basically know Detroits climo like the back of my hand since 1870s. There's tons of good and bad, but even if I didn't know any climate data, I can tell you that as a snowlover since birth, winters of my youth were far less wintry than the ones this century.  I can't remember the 80s but I do remember the 90s. We had a few good storms but overall the winters were just weak and we had a huge rebound in the 21st century. 

 

The 2010s were the snowiest decade on record in Detroit and this was soley due to January and February. The bookend parts of the season have stayed relatively constant from an avg standpoint but there have been some weird trends. For a while we were in a stretch where November and April snowfall had notably decreased from the 20th century. But now in recent years we've had several snowy November's, some even setting records, and some real shit December's. The last handful of years have seen unusually late April and even May accumulating snows in this region, along with early blasts of October snow. So I would say a few years stretch of anything is definitely not long enough to declare any trends, but I think we can all agree that the weather has done some wonky things in recent years. 

 

 Looking a little farther out side of my specific area, our region in general has really seen some weird things happen during the book end portions of the season in recent years. Without breaking down all the individual details, it would be very reasonable for someone to think that Winter seems to be making early appearances pre Halloween, then deciding to take a little hiatus during part or most of the Christmas season. Fast forwarding, as the calendar turns from February to March, we seem to have taste of Spring and have not had a good March snow in a while but then Winter decides to show up for an encore in April.

 

 But looking at winters of the past there's always been weird things happening so I would not put too much thought into it at this time.  The 1930s were an era of mild snowless winters and hot summers, yet for some reason we had quite a run of late March snowstorms. Another decade that was known for mild winters was the 1950s, but we had a lot of good November snows that decade. 

Admittedly, I’m looking at this through the clouded lens of being on the cusp of turning a good-to-great winter into a truly memorable winter but spring had to go and show up early, and that’s a much better position to be in than last year, when winter blasted through the door here in early November, pulled a disappearing act for six months and came back for the first half of May when it was too late.

40 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

There's nothing wrong with wanting more winter. What snow weenie doesn't? I think some people just raz beav when expectations go against climatology/how weather works. 

 

This is the part I adamantly disagree with: "lack of a true winter, which is unfortunately becoming more and more common in areas on the fringe of the true northern US like Chicago, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Indy, even Detroit, etc. in recent years."

Probably since the beginning of time there's always a grandpa that says "in my day winters were worse" . And that will never change. It's just an odd quirk of people who don't actually follow the weather closely enough. Chicago, Detroit and Pittsburgh are quite different climates than Columbus/Indy. Especially here in the southern Great Lakes our climate is a unique one. We typically see the 1st snowflakes in October and do not see the last until April, sometimes even May. We see many days during the season with snowfall but it is also very uncommon to see Winter lock itself in the entire DJF period without thaws & breaks of bare ground. BUT...when has it not been that way?  just our climo. Certainly we've had a few very mild winters since our recent historic stretch, but the idea that there is any less "Winter" in recent years than there used to be, is false.

I can only speak from my own experiences (I’m 36 and not a grandpa, lol, and I do follow the weather closely) and I agree that the five cities I named all have their own unique climate, though Columbus and Indy are certainly less influenced by the lakes than the other three. I’d be hard pressed to name a winter where it hasn’t been that way, outside of the late 1970s, which I didn’t get to experience. I can remember playing outside as a kid on numerous 65-70 degree January and February days in the ‘90s.
 

My argument here boils down to my opinion that the core of winter is still there, but the “shoulder seasons”, if you will, (somewhat Nov/early Dec, but especially late Feb/early Mar) are getting a lot less likely to have cold and snow than they used to be. I’m not comparing them to, nor do I expect them to be like, mid-January, I’m comparing them to late February in the past. Of course it’s going to be warmer on average the last week of February than the third week of January. But at least in Pittsburgh, the last week of February has been an extension of spring for 6 years in a row now. I realize 6 years isn’t enough to draw any definitive conclusions, but it’s at least enough to make you say “hmm.” And when it’s not just a momentary warm spell, but a pattern that occurs year after year after year, you start to wonder if maybe this is related to climate and not weather.

11 hours ago, Ahoff said:

That’s why taking one run and accepting it isn’t the best plan.

Well that, but that signal had been consistent for several runs and has faded a bit with all of today’s runs. And of course, the usual disclaimer of “it’s the GFS” holds true here. I’ll wait and see what the Euro thinks when next weekend is in its run, it’s been making the GFS look like a kindergarten project lately at the 7-10 day range, picking up on both the general pattern and the magnitude of said pattern much sooner (i.e., last week’s warmth, the colder period this week). But the messaging the NWS is putting out seems to lean towards the GFS when the models disagree - it’s almost like someone in charge said “hey, when these models disagree, you should lean towards the GFS unless and until it comes in line with the Euro. You work for our country and should give preference to products bought and paid for by our country.” (I may be way off base, but it’s a theory I have.)

Edit: now that the models diverge in the 7-10 day range (Euro gives us a high of 68 on Friday the 12th, GFS gives us 42), we’ll see how this plays out in real time.

2 minutes ago, Ahoff said:

55" basically averages out the the what 22-25" last year.

I suppose it does, besides, the GFS and Para don’t seem to want to keep either warm or cold air in place for long in the extended. March doesn’t look excessively warm like it did yesterday.

26 minutes ago, Ahoff said:

But if we get a top 10 or top 15 winter every winter, then we make the totals almost impossible to actually achieve at some point.  There's around 140 years of weather history in Pittsburgh, if we get a top 20 or top 30 snowy winter that's pretty damn good.  Do we all want top 10 years, absolutely, but we have to celebrate small victories.

Small victories are great, but I still feel like we need a massive victory to make up for our massive defeat last winter. In fairness, I think I worked out that the 1991-2020 snowfall averages at PIT are still going to be an inch or two higher than the 1981-2010 averages.

4 hours ago, Rd9108 said:

Am I the only one not disappointed in this winter??? We had a storm over 10 inches that all fell during daylight with some good rates. We had a solid White Christmas. We had multiple 6+ storms. December finally wasn't a dud like usual. Ill take front loaded winters over backloaded any day. We didn't quite get the big daddy storm or arctic air but all in all if winter ends today I'm giving it an A- 

I can’t dispute that it was a good winter. But in thinking about other good winters in Pittsburgh’s history, it’s a garden-variety good winter, a once every 5-7 years type of deal. If we get less than an inch of additional snow the rest of the way (which I’d say is at least a 50/50 bet), it puts us just outside the top 20 all time. I’m not saying we need record-breaking snow and cold, but a top 10 or top 15 winter of all time is what I would describe as “phenomenal.” I guess it depends on how you view other factors, like number of significant snowstorms, what one personally defines to be a “significant snowstorm”, length of time with a snowpack, white Christmas, how early or late the winter went, etc. If these factors are even more important than the actual final total, I can see how this would be a “phenomenal” winter. So it’s not disappointing in that sense, it’s more that it had the potential to be even more special if the back end hadn’t been so crappy.

33 minutes ago, Ahoff said:

It was late March and 10".  Regardless of duration it was impressive.  Possibly the lastest 10" storm on record, so record setting for you.

March '18 had 12.3" (with that storm), '17 had 9.7", '15 had 9", '13 had 15.2", your record warm 2012 had 6" of snow.  So, in the last decade we had 4 Marchs with above average snow, a few that are just a few inches below average, and even less with almost no snow.  So, Winter does not just abruptly end every year, in fact it feels as if it frequently drags into March more often than not.  You need to stop expecting record events in every month and every season.

Indeed, that is the latest in the KPIT era. There are a couple April days in the very early 1900s that recorded 11+ inches. I guess we did break a few daily snowfall records this winter, when a moderate accumulation happened to line up with a date that had a low-hanging fruit kind of record (I’m thinking Christmas in particular).

And I guess we can’t join March of 1903, 1927, and 1946 in infamy as the only ones without measurable snow, since KPIT managed to pick up 0.1” yesterday.

59 minutes ago, Rd9108 said:

Sir we literally had like a 10 inch snow storm three years ago at the end of March. 

My memory seems to be telling me that was one of those long-duration events that melted almost as it fell, was an advisory rather than a warning, and was little more than a number in the record books. I seem to recall driving the turnpike and being able to safely go 70 the whole way. I could be wrong.