TimB

All years where the first freezing temperature of the new year was recorded on or after January 3rd. Will be interesting to see how far up this list we rise, but it looks like 2005 and 2006 were the only years since observations at the airport started that the first freeze of a calendar year occurred on or after the 4th.

A lot of shutouts or near-shutouts for a massive region of the country including us for the next 16 days on the GFS, this one from the 18z run being the most egregious. Euro’s last two runs are showing an almost workable solution with the system later next week after the heat wave, but it’s too warm on all the other models for anything but more rain.

A week and a half warm period with signs of life by the first full weekend of the new year would be acceptable. I think that’s pretty much in line with a lot of winters, we’ve been spoiled by two years with no real January torches that are actually pretty common in these parts. Sure, I would have wished the cold period would last more than a few days, but it was an epic cold snap that rivaled some of the greatest December arctic outbreaks ever recorded here. 2nd coldest Christmas Eve/Day period on record. And it probably was enough to clinch a below normal temperature December and, by my calculations, an ever so slightly below normal mean temperature for the entire year of 2022.

Hard to really say the warmup looks short. Ensemble height anomalies are red basically from Tuesday through the end of their runs. So that’s like two weeks of warmth if it stays that way.

We’re gaining about a degree per hour which should put us right around 12 or 13 by midnight.

NWS pretty much guarantees we set that record low max today, TWC suggests we’ll be very close to 13 by midnight. I guess we’ll see.

-6 was a rounded figure. Was -5 on the daily climate report. Still incredible. 1.2” of snow too.

-5 now at PIT.

HRRR won this one. Very little back end snow, mid single digits below by afternoon.

I don’t believe it was real snow falling. Probably just blowing snow that shows up that way on the automated obs.

Done. 12:30 obs was -4. With mod snow even.

No reason to believe it can’t. Wheeling is down to -4. PIT observed -1 on the hourly, then -2 right after so it’s officially our first below 0 in December since 1989 and only one degree to go to tie the daily record.

If we could somehow drop another few degrees and break today’s record low of -3, that’d make it interesting. But PIT has been stagnant at 0 for the last hour. Though I guess some of those could be -1’s because of the rounding thing.

Would venture to guess that the only instance of an afternoon below 0 in December was Christmas Eve/Day 1983. Even in 1989, afternoon temps were above 0.

Afternoon of 1/30/19 was below 0, it appears. High was 15, low was -5.

Record low max is 13. Only risk is we get midnighted with rising evening temps. 0z Euro would screw us verbatim.

Probably the afternoon after we hit -22 in 1994 honestly.

Can one of you explain why the high wind watch in CTP’s western counties hasn’t been made into an advisory or a warning despite the fact that it’s now ongoing?

PIT is officially down to 0 as of 10:21.

Upstream, Zanesville has made it to -5. Impressive considering their high will be 44.

8 in Pittsburgh, 36 in Bradford. That can’t happen too often.

The only December record low since 1989 was a low of 7 on 12/6/17. It would indeed be nice to get our subzero temp out of the way before Christmas. I think there’s a good chance it gets below 0 at the airport but -3 might be a tough ask. We’ll know soon.

I am, and this is indeed impressive. Nice to see an overperformance on the snow as well.

Jesus, how did all these seshers get here?