TimB

The 2/3 event is the cold I was referencing. The 31 was a midnight high and afternoon temperatures were in the mid teens. I don’t know about afternoon temperatures specifically, but other than around Christmas 2022, I think the last time PIT had a high in the mid teens was probably 2019. So I’m counting that as “quite cold,” as we went three consecutive winters with nothing like that.

Couple of nice days to start the week then rainy and gross like a Pittsburgh spring should be.

In fairness, the cold parts of the pattern this winter (Christmas, early February) did get quite cold, though brief and still pretty snowless, and this is no exception.

Ha, who knows. The 10.5” in late March 2018 probably was.

Whether next week pans out or not, I’m happy to get a day that looks and feels like winter today. Snow on the ground, snow in the air, with temps hovering in the upper 20s and wind chills in the low teens. We really haven’t had many. Aside from Christmas, have we had any?

That would shatter the record for biggest storm after the equinox (I think April 1901 and April 1902 come in at about a foot each), so yeah, not expecting that to happen.

Looks like the NWS obs was 2.2”, which would put us at 16.8” for the season and leaving no doubt that this will not be a snow futility season, as we have passed 1973-74.

Granted the bar was set nice and low, but this event was quite enjoyable and enough to send this rotten winter off with a slightly less bitter taste.

The “they” I was referring to was people like Chesco. Climate denial is not rooted in grounded facts, it’s rooted in appeals to emotion like “but my kids.”

Why do they always play the “children” card when they’re losing?

That’s essentially what I’m saying. Worst in over 90 years is notable enough. We each can decide on our own if we trust the old records. It might not be indicative of any long term trend in snow totals, let’s hope not anyway, but it’s honestly surreal to go through a winter like this. It plays with your perception of time. It doesn’t feel like March because we haven’t had winter yet. It doesn’t feel like we’ll be turning the clocks forward tomorrow night. It doesn’t feel like the next major snowfall is at least 9-10 months away. I’m never a big fan of the flip from winter to spring, but it doesn’t even feel real this year.

I guess it’s really not even a point worth debating, it’s the difference between a terrible winter (one of the worst on record) or literally the worst one on record. I’m still hoping, though that hope is starting to fade, that we get something, anything, out of this pattern we’re in now to render this debate moot.

I acknowledged that in my post. Judging by the area by the airport, snow totals were about 60% higher than this map shows. So the 5” is really more like 8”.

So there you have it. The estimate for the airport looks a little low, but this is saying the city has gotten a little over half what the airport has, so even if you scale the airport up from ~9” to the actual amount of 14.5” (an increase of about 60%), that scales the city up to about 8”. Which would make this the worst snow season on record, worse than the 8.8” in 1918-19.

The differences are pretty stark when you look at prolific winters like 1950-51 (yes, I know this one was pre-KPIT) 1960-61, 1969-70 and 1977-78. You’re talking 25” of difference in some of those.

Could you make the argument that Pittsburgh (in the city) has seen less than 8.8” this winter? I think it’s possible.

I wouldn’t be, but I’d like to not set a snow futility record. So I either have to hope for a few more inches of snow or pretend the 8.8” from 1918-19 is legit.

For those keeping score, we need 2.1 more inches of snow to avoid setting the KPIT record and what is likely the real record for least snow in a season, the 16.6” in 1974.

It is indeed weird. I didn’t live here during that storm, so I have zero anecdotal evidence of anything that did or didn’t happen, but something’s odd.

Yeah I really think the 11th is dead. So now anyone who’s still holding onto any chance of anything resembling winter before the interminable 9 months to follow will just have to hope for something the following week under ever more hostile climo. Every week that passes from here on out, it gets exponentially more difficult to get meaningful snowfall. It’s honestly surreal to think we’re on the cusp of making it through an entire winter without anything slightly resembling winter other than those 3 days at Christmas. To illustrate this, there are exactly 9 warning level (6” or more) snowstorms in our records beyond 3/15, and only two in the past 65 years. It would be a miracle if something pans out in the 3/15-3/17 timeframe that some are touting.

We desperately need next weekend to not turn into the clusterf*** that the Euro showed, if only to take the focus off of this NWS Ike coverup.

It’s Friday afternoon. Please, for the sake of your weekend, no one look at the 12z Euro. You’ll thank me later.

And it’s official. 70 again. Earliest in a calendar year we’ve gotten there 4 times. Previous record was March 6th in 1946.

I think this table is wrong. The 59.8 belongs to 17-18, not 18-19, which I think was slightly below normal. The ones below it should be shifted down as well.

Yeah I was just joking. I rather enjoyed last summer to be honest. I haven’t forgotten that we managed an ever so slightly below normal 2022 if you look at the entire year. We had to pay for it at some point, and pay for it we did.