TimB

Euro gives us mostly rain, GFS brings a snowstorm of epic proportions through central NC and gives us nothing, and the Para gives the aforementioned blast of snow to MD/VA. In other words, the models have picked up this storm and there’s still a ton of time to either cash in or not.

The threshold for “this storm didn’t suck” was admittedly set incredibly low at this point, but I think we managed to not even meet that threshold.

All I ask is that if it’s not going to happen, the models pick up on it no later than Sunday so as not to get our hopes up and crush us.

It’s always a curse when the models agree and tease us with a D9 storm like they did with this one. Hopefully they don’t do that again. Oh wait...

That’s a tough ask, depends on which model is closer on the extent of warmth later next week. GFS keeps us not terribly far above freezing but the Euro sends our temps soaring. Maybe the snowpack will slow that down too, though.

Believe it or not, that’s the only time this century and only the second time since the big one that we’ve gotten 6” of snow on a single calendar day in March (3/21/18).

I hope it’s not a third straight year with less than 1.5” of total snowfall beyond March 3rd, but as long as spring is seasonable and not the kind of year where you have to turn the a/c on well before Memorial Day, I can live with that.

This. It’s essentially April, except sometimes instead of getting 1-2” inches of snow overnight that melts before noon the next day, you can sometimes get 4-8” of snow that melts before noon (think 2018).

Ah, that’s where I was mistaken. Somewhere along the line I believed 3” was an advisory here. And no, I don’t have confidence that any part of Allegheny County gets 4”. I think it’s possible in some SE areas of the county, but not with any confidence. Maybe I’m getting confused because my mind’s current threshold between “this storm sucked” and “this storm didn’t suck” is at about 3”.

So the NWS thinks most of Allegheny County gets 3-4” of snow (so low end advisory level), but isn’t confident enough to issue an advisory. That doesn’t bode well.

I would say I went to bed last night thinking there was a very real possibility if not likelihood that yesterday would officially be the snowiest day of this week. It’s still a possibility, but a lot less likely. Edit: this was before I saw the 12z Euro.

If you told me last night our eventual total would be 1” or less, I would have agreed. I’m not so sure I do now. It’s definitely not a warning level event but it’s probably at least borderline advisory, especially if the highest rates are centered around a rush hour. This goes back to the NWS’s idea of “how do we message this so as not to confuse the general public?” that we’ve been talking about all week. Because the general public, especially in Pittsburgh sees “2-3 inches” and thinks, “that’s nothing, it might be a minor inconvenience to me but not much more, and besides, the NWS was badly wrong last time,” whereas if they see “2-3 inches with the heaviest rates centered around the evening rush” (though I don’t think that’s when we get the best rates, even if that’s what NWS implies), then a little more caution is involved. Because we know that a quick 2-3 inches at rush hour will cripple the evening commute around here.

GFS has stopped the bleeding with the SE shift, which is good. NWS still wants to keep the “heavy at times” wording in for both tomorrow and tomorrow night in our area, despite forecasting only 2-3 inches of snow.

Seems that way. This winter helped me forget this is the way it almost always works in Pittsburgh, so I wasn’t as prepared as I would normally be for the models completely falling apart with a drastic last minute NW shift, then two days later completely falling apart with a drastic last minute SE shift. It’ll be interesting to see what today’s final snow total is at the airport. Today could be the snowiest day of the week when it’s all said and done.

At this point, if I were a betting man, I’d bet against advisory level snowfall. Not saying I’d bet against snowfall at all (yet).

Any more SE shift at all and I think our chance at even advisory level snowfall is sunk. I think NWS has me at about 3.8 on the point and click, which is roughly half of what I had as recently as this morning. This one is disappearing as quickly as yesterday’s storm, but in the other direction.

Don’t get me wrong, I truly enjoy having four seasons, but summer is by far my least favorite of the four (at least from a weather perspective). The relentless heat and humidity is too much. No snow and very little severe weather to track, at least by the time you get to July/August, and the last few summers have lasted 4-5 months.

Ah, I see the one for the Wilmington, OH forecast office is for 2-4 inches and a light glaze of ice. That would barely get us an advisory. Like I said earlier, at least the 7 people that live in Preston/Tucker County, WV (if any of them even like snow) will be satisfied with this storm.

There’s a notable gap in the watches somewhere...

I actually saved this map from 1/31 because we constantly see ones with no blue, but we never see ones with no orange/red. It was incredible to see.

Well folks, Thursday may be it for awhile. We all know how long this pattern seems to persist every time it sets up the past few years.

True. Was forgetting we won that storm in the North Hills, even if the “official” total was less than 12”.

Likewise. I didn’t live here in 2010, unfortunately. I was old enough in March 1993 to know it was historic, but 8 year old me certainly wasn’t tracking the storm. So I have yet to track even a 12” snow event in Pittsburgh, unless I’m forgetting one.

18z NAM as well, though it looks mostly like just better SLRs. No real change to QPF or track from 12z.

It feels different when a storm busts in December and you know there’ll be a bunch more chances vs. when two storms in a row bust in late February ahead of a well-advertised pattern flip, followed by, well, actual spring and the next chance could be ten months from now. Ah well, at least in spring I can be disappointed when we get put in an enhanced risk by the SPC and don’t see a drop of rain.