TimB

Shades of January 2019. Okay, not that cold. That was the true extreme event when it comes to anything recent up there.

Verbatim wouldn’t be great but there’s a lot of model noise going on here. I’m just saying with the overall pattern change coming the models are struggling to get a handle on any of the details, which is probably typical with a major pattern change.

Hmm. Shows a drastically different pattern in the D7-10 range. Models still seem to be all over the map with the general longwave pattern at that range.

18z GFS delivers the goods.

PIT looks to finish December with an average temperature somewhere around 40.9 (+7.2 departure, 9th warmest all time, 2nd warmest in the KPIT era only behind 2015) and 0.3” of snow (-7.4 departure, 7th least all time, 3rd least in the KPIT era behind only 1994 and 2014 and tied with 2015). January can’t be worse than that, right? No model consistency on the January 6th-7th potential, though it seems likely there will be precip during that timeframe and in some cases a chance for something worth tracking. Time will tell.

We’re all on the same team here. I’ll do my best to stop being a fair-weather weather enthusiast. January looks better than December and that’s all we can ask for.

Major improvement for Thurs on 0z.

I apologize, it’s difficult not to get frustrated with a pattern where the opportunities to exit before it’s too late are diminishing. Beyond that, 2021 has been an extremely difficult year for me personally (not just pandemic stuff), and some of that is almost certainly reflected in my negativity about this winter, which feels like icing on the cake to a terrible year. I’ll try to tone it down.

Fair enough, I was way too hasty in my look at it. General pattern is ugly when it comes to sustained cold.

Did someone say 18z GFS?

No it’s not, it’s impressive how quick those 500 height anomalies spring back to deep red next weekend behind the departing system.

No torching beyond 72 hours which is a plus.

Lots of time. Hopefully at least someone wins with this one.

The irony being it is pretty close to where I want it. Sorry guys.

Just look at that late week storm go straight up the Ohio River. Right where we want it.

Now don’t be so negative, it will. Just give it time.

Fair enough. In the meantime, let’s hope for some snow out of the possible events next week!

It looks like you just said my pessimism with the current pattern is simply realism, no?

Would be interesting to compare those bad years with the same years in other regions of the country and see if everything east of the Rockies was simultaneously bad as it’s been this year so far. I don’t know the answer to that off the top of my head.

But it’s not just PA. Places in very different regions of the country whose weather doesn’t correlate to ours whatsoever (Denver and Chicago for example) obliterated records for latest first measurable snow. If it were just an isolated occurrence for one region of the country, I wouldn’t be as concerned.

I think my post about single digit snowfall was probably over the line as far as “canceling winter” posts go. Yes, it’s probably too early to worry about that.

As our climo slowly becomes more like theirs, that’s bound to happen.

Is it too early to be legitimately worried about finishing winter with a single digit snow total?

EC brings in a decent snowfall with the cold air later in the week. Might be the only game in town if the Sun/Mon event doesn’t pan out. Ens look almost as bad as the ops for D10+.

I really like the snow total through 372 for most of PA on the 6z. But fear not, for there are more 60s in fantasyland on the 6z.