TimB

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.

2022, the year without a summer, where all three months were chilly and we didn’t get to 94 in June. In unrelated news, I really hope this mid-March setup produces for us. It looks like a decent signal for a chance at some goods to close out the season.

I deliberately excluded months that came before the super Niño permanently ushered in new levels of heat.

I’d get raked over the coals for saying something like the bolded, as it really is just one year and Jan-Feb was fine last year and the year before, but then I remember all of the horrific, hellish winter months we’ve had in the last 8 years. December 2015, January 2017, February 2017, February 2018, January 2020, December 2021, January 2023, February 2023. That’s an average of one winter month every year that is so far above normal that it’s remarkable. There is not a single month in that period with as negative a departure as any of the above months are positive.

And so today concludes the warmest Jan-Feb period anyone who posts here has ever experienced in this area. Warmer than 2017. Warmer than 1998.

Missing out on a snowstorm in December or January, you know there will probably be more chances. Missing out on a snowstorm as the calendar flips to spring stings a lot more knowing it may very well be the last chance for a very long time. Especially in a winter where there hasn’t been a single period other than 72 hours around Christmas that even slightly resembled winter.

The usual “always a bridesmaid” that our area does best when it comes to most types of weather. Pittsburgh is right at the fringe of the marginal risk. Can’t see how we’re going to achieve much instability as dreary as it is out there.

What if it’s not? What if this is what winter is now?

In a matter of like 2 days, we went from something well south of us to something where the heaviest snowfall might be west of the Mississippi. You can’t make this shit up.

All I wanted was one event bigger than our current highest daily total of 2.2”, which we’ve quite literally gotten in every single winter on the record.

Oh wait, but there’s that pattern flip in mid-March. Let’s see if we can get some snow while fighting against a climatological average high of 50.

Are they? It’s probably going to be 10 months until we get even an advisory level snowfall. Well probably 11, since we all know it doesn’t happen in December anymore.

And it’s gone. What a disaster. Infuriating. Revisiting that “going to be disappointment somewhere in the east” comment, yeah, there’s going to be disappointment in all of the exact same areas that have been disappointed all winter because this thing is taking a similar GOD DAMN F***ING track as every storm we’ve seen all winter.

Well, that pretty much tells us everything that we need to know. We have to hope for a miracle or we’ll continue to be on a collision course with our first winter without an advisory level snowfall for at least 90 years if ever. Even 1918-1919, the winter that (allegedly) had 8.8” of snow for the season, had an advisory level snowfall. So did 1889-1890, which had 11.4” for the season. This really might be the first winter ever without one. Edit: it appears 1930-31 had a max daily snowfall of 2.2”, just like this year. Besides that, all other winter seasons in Pittsburgh have had 2.5” of snowfall on at least one day. So we’re still in line to tie an all time record from a year where measurements were taken in an area that gets less snow than the airport.

Such a stupid, stupid pattern. Every damn storm this winter. Literally every bad winter I’ve looked at so far, back to 1932, has had at least one advisory level event.

Euro is hanging on by a thread. Yikes.

GEFS mean did improve at 12z, but it’s still down from 6”+ yesterday to 4” now.

Ukie is following the bad trend. I think it’s only a matter of time before the Canadian gives it up.

12z hasn’t been good to us at all. This is going to be the same old story as every god damn storm so far this winter. We just can’t win.

Euro was good. Bullseye is a bit south but 8-12”+ across the county. Ukie bullseyes us with over a foot. The GFS thing is concerning, however. And honestly, so is the huge NW shift in all of the models over the last 24 hours, even the ones that look great for us, because once that starts it doesn’t usually stop.