TimB

I recognize that 6-7” of snow over the next 16 days would be basically within the margin of error for “normal” but that’s what the GEFS mean is sitting at right now, which isn’t horrific.

You know what I’d place my money on if I had to bet between delayed and denied but I’m not going to continue flooding this place with negativity.

Agree that delayed but not denied is probably the best hope here.

I do understand what Blizz means on that, tho. Sure, you can’t really get accumulating snow most of the time when the temp is 38, but if the normals are, say, 38/24, a day that is 33/29 is exactly normal and you can get accumulating snow on that day.

Of course it exists. The 3 years we’re competing with for warmest year at PIT airport (1991, 2012 and 2016) had warmer average max temps than this year: So naturally this year has had the warmest lows at PIT: (Yes, I know 1949 isn’t actually PIT airport but I forgot to filter out 1948-1952).

Looks like possibly our first GEFS ensemble runs of the season with mean total snowfall over 6” finally showed up last night. 0z total might be a little high because it had several members pushing an advisory level snowfall Friday night into Saturday which seems ambitious, but things may finally be pointing in the right direction?

Who do I have to…well, you know… to get some goddamned snow around here?

True, forgot we have a thread for that specific purpose. My bad.

@TheClimateChangerI’d assume we have warmest year at KPIT in the bag?

It’s not trolling, it’s frustration and despair because it’s been nearly 22 months since we’ve even had a hint of winter and then a change to seasonable weather that had been advertised for weeks got significantly delayed practically overnight just 4 days out and may disappear entirely, yielding to endless highs in the 40s/lows in the 30s November/March type shit. Last winter wasn’t just bad, it was in the historically bad category, as has been this winter so far.

We’re about to lose most of January too, aren’t we?

Remember, just two days ago it was thought that below freezing temps would dominate from Thursday on.

This is ugly. A low off the VA/NC coast in JANUARY, under negative 500mb height anomalies, bringing rain to PA. Unreal.

Sorry, but I’m extremely frustrated with how suddenly the models pulled the rug on the return to winter later this week, and just 4 days out, and it’s not like it’s just being delayed by a day or two. They can’t seem to get a handle on anything these days. Sure, patience is a virtue, but it’s a struggle on the heels of the worst winter of any of our lifetimes and now we’ve frittered away almost half of this one with nothing to show for it. Sorry, but it just stings.

Airport in this case.

It’s gone. Seasonable cold is now 10+ days away. The writing is on the wall. This is the same goddamn thing that kept happening and happening last year, and it fucking sucks.

Given the change in the forecast for late week/weekend, we may finish with just 10 freezing temps in December, less than 2015 and in 2nd place on this list.

Sure enough, highs into the 40s into the middle of next week. This is absolutely ridiculous. GFS sniffed out, like it always does, that the torch was going to continue and now the other operational models have followed suit and the ensembles will be next to go. Just 3-4 days before what was expected to be the pattern change too.

Fair enough. Merry Christmas, enjoy the (still somewhat rare) treat of getting to wear shorts on Christmas!

If you’re looking for warning signs, the 500 maps on the GEFS do have an awful lot of red floating around. It’s not as bad as the Canadian ensemble where you can already see the end of the pattern by the end of the run, but things decisively moved a bad direction overnight on several models.

The thing I noticed on the 6z GFS is it suddenly has this idea that it’s going to take much longer for “cold enough” weather to arrive. The positive height anomalies remain entrenched, and what once looked like a seasonable weekend with highs in the 30s and lows comfortably below freezing now looks like a warm-ish weekend with highs in the 40s and lows not hitting the freezing mark. In fact, the first freezing temp on the entire run occurs around hour 240, in the wee hours of Jan 3. So instead of 4 or 5 days until it feels like winter again, the GFS thinks it’ll be 10. That’s a huge change if it’s onto something.

Quiet in here. I assume the day 14 storm was gone on the 18z?

Nah. He’s so close to getting it, even if “in our current warm cycle” has no place on a science-based forum.

Hard to tell, honestly. You know what I think of the old records but it’s the only records we have so what can you do?

Probably more legitimate than splicing PWS data into existing threaded records from other observing sites but beggars can’t be choosers.