TimB

To that point, today looks pretty dry. Point and click centered at the airport forecasts a similar qpf tomorrow as yesterday.

I’m not convinced that today won’t be when it’s all said and done.

I think basically the frontal boundary sags southward but remains close enough to continue the rainy pattern, then surges back north as a warm front for Saturday and spawns more rain.

I like seasons too, but the season that seems to last the longest around here is objectively terrible.

I’ll never understand looking forward to the stifling heat and humidity that awaits us in about 7 weeks, probably with tastes of it before then, and will likely last 4-5 months. If winter ever had as good a hold on us as summer does every single year, no one would ever have any lack of snow to complain about.

I can see not wanting some little 1-3” type event, but I’d take a 17” snowfall in January or July or anywhere in between if I could get it. That said, no way in hell this is happening.

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.