jwilson

Agree. The thing on Wednesday looks like a pretty flat, progressive wave that will pass fairly well south of us. Heights are pumping a little bit out west, but the location of the ridge isn't ideal and honestly, it's not dramatic enough to make me look twice. The flow is quick from there and the eventual developed low doesn't start bombing until it is well off the coast, and not even all the models have that kind of development. Maybe Coastal Maine could see something. It's still too fast to be much of a producer.

Thanks! I had some thoughts / predictions for the winter. I went back and looked at all the years with back-to-back Nina episodes. There wasn't much of a constant or pattern. Some years were lean (<30") while others were fine (>50"). Obviously, last year we did well, particularly in December, and then by March the winter was over. I think this year is probably going to be the inverse of that, with more of our snow coming in February and perhaps March, but it remains a coin-flip month. Overall, I don't think we're looking at much. My guess is the official Pittsburgh measurement is between 25-35". Granted, the high end of that is close to normal, not exactly a bad winter, per se, but I instinctively pull toward the low-end. Areas south will do worse, as is typical. I "only" measured 38.2" last season compared to Pittsburgh which was well over 50 inches. As in a Nina, we aren't likely to see a ton of southern-jet (STJ) activity. We're looking at a northern stream dominant winter, with clippers and lake effect the predominant means of snow makers. I don't really foresee a 10"+ storm, but guessing that this far out means I don't have much confidence. I could certainly be wrong. Pittsburgh isn't as sensitive to Nina winters as some places in the East that rely on coastals. The December outlook isn't bullish. I think this is one of those winters where we lead into Christmas week with 50s, maybe even 60s on occasion. Not exactly the best "winter holiday" feel. I prefer cold and snowy, of course, but that combination in December is uncommon for all the places I've ever lived. We probably come out of December with <5" of snow total. Then you have a brief pattern breakdown either around New Years or early January before it is back to a warmish look (40s to 50s). As I said, I think the best chance for snow is February once we begin to bring down the Nina from its peak and push back toward neutral. We might still finish warm each month, but that doesn't mean we'll get shutout. I could be 100% wrong on all of this so take it with a grain of salt. Just my predictions based on teleconnections, experience, and the overall worldview as it stands right now. As a snow lover, I certainly hope I'm wrong.

it's December 1st! We should perhaps start a winter thread? I don't know if that matters.

Had a nice white rain all day, but nothing stuck, so the winter scenery was lacking a tad. Good to see some snow, though.

That was an unexpected event. A tornado outbreak in late October isn't exactly typical. Seems we had some extra shear and helicity that was not predicted? Recency bias at work, but we appear to avoid the severe weather when there are actual watches in place. Stuff goes off when there's no expectation. I have friends near the Ross Park Mall and it looks like the rotation must have gone right over them. If there was a funnel, luckily it hadn't touched down (yet). There were also a couple other events to my south. Not sure what happened near McMurray whether it was a brief touchdown or a microburst. Definitely a tornado west of Washington.

That's both later and more often than I had expected. I guess pushing it to November isn't quite as unusual as I first thought.

Long-term, it looks like we could push the first freeze all the way back into November. That kind of fits with the theme of this year with warmer lows, and I wonder what the latest freeze date is for PIT (unless that's the 10/26 date to which you refer). We don't really approach the mark until hour 366 on the GFS. The only other time we get remotely close is hour 198 around the 26th (ironically). Freezing temps creep into northern PA while we hit 37 or so. It's not just us, either. Most of the northeast has avoided any kind of real cold thus far, even overnight cold, and that continues through the long-term. Excepting maybe a period next week. We'll see if it pans out. We're in for another La Nina spell this winter.

Saw this guy outside today. Looks like a mild winter is incoming? I've never tested this theory, but here's a good opportunity.

80s really aren't uncommon in October, at least not in modern climatology. 7 of the last 11 years have had at least one 80-degree day in October, but typically it's a few. We were spoiled last year with the more "traditional" fall weather. It was unlikely to repeat, at least not with regularity. We'll have to relish the occasional odd year where it happens going forward.

First snow October 22nd. Think we can lock that one in?

Sounds like we're going to need another hurricane to break the pattern again.

I think we've gotten used to September warming, at this point. It is rarely a "fall" month anymore. We can even stretch the 80s (and more rarely 90s) into October. Heck, even last November was warm in the beginning. Of course, two years ago November was the coldest month of the winter (I think), so it's hardly definitive beyond a warmer September. I like fall, though, and it's unfortunate we see less of it. My own theory is we're eventually going to have two primary seasons: winter and summer, not much lengthy in-between.

Guess I spoke too soon. Looks like we've started the eastward jog, and it has kept pouring through this so the metro area might verify those high-end totals of 4-6".

We've had a hard rain, as well, for a while but about to dry slot which should save us from a worse fate. We also lost power briefly, clearly a flow problem, but it seems they upped the auxiliary because we're okay for now. Although I did see some power flashes behind us. Everything is soaked at this point. Not a terrible surprise the rain has gone further north than expected.

Not much consensus from the models. A pre-winter delight in storm tracking with Allegheny once again the battleground.

I wondered if the right-turn that Ida took early would result in a more southern solution eventually. Maybe there's no correlation, but for now it looks like that's the case. Although this looks like a winter storm scenario with a northern-stream vort pressing down and a tight precip gradient. I'm with Ritual, on this one. Too many bad memories. While probably nothing, I hope getting "missed" by two tropical systems doesn't portend something for the winter season. If we get missed, that is.

I have friends down in BR riding out this event (one couldn't leave because of his job). I'm hoping they'll stay on the north/east side of the eye to spare them the worst of it, but it looks like it will get close. Regardless, the flooding is going to be quite bad, to put it mildly. As for us, the track is still uncertain. We saw a northward shift with Fred which isn't unusual for us. Maybe something similar happens again (not that a northward shift in this case would really help too much, absent something extraordinary).

Thursday was a nasty one for us. We basically had a three-hour thunderstorm that had varying intensities of precipitation. A lot of close lightning strikes. Makes me wish I had a camera setup on a tripod to record the whole thing. Fortunately we got a break last night, as the worst of the storms skipped us over (perhaps because we used up all the energy the night before). We've more than made up for the dull spring. Now I'm kind of looking forward to cool fall weather, if such a thing will happen this year.

There's this from NWS Pittsburgh showing all the lightning:

Looks like this one weakened below severe levels right before it hit us. The wind wasn't even that bad locally. Hopefully no tornado up north. I had a good view of the line from the southeast and there might have been remnants of a wall cloud, but it became clearly disorganized before moving in. Also didn't visibly see any real rotation.

Sorry, I meant not bad locally. I didn't mean that as a universal attribute.

We've been pretty lucky (or unlucky depending on your POV) here locally. Yesterday was the first storm that actually hit us and it wasn't all that bad. Most of them have been missing just to the west or east. Sorry for those of you dealing with problems. I've seen lots of down trees and flooding elsewhere, including my own old 'hood in Morgantown. Actually, I've always been curious about this microclimate split we seem to have between north of the city and south. For whatever reason, it seems south of the city gets much less incidence of true severe. Does anyone happen to know why? Is it simple terrain/geography?

I was outside prior to the line rolling in, and you could feel the change before the rain ever hit. It went from a warm wind and humid day to almost instantly cooler with a cold breeze. We seem to do outflow-dominant well around these parts.

NWS mentioned yesterday that they've only issued 2 severe warnings so far in 2021, while last year we had 52 to this point. Seems like a country-wide effect, though. All measures of severe weather are way down from the averages, including >200 fewer tornadoes than usual. June and July are typically our biggest months so we'll see if anything changes over the summer.

Looking forward to interesting weather, though I would prefer some thunderstorms to track. Pretty dull spring so far in that regard. I remember last April we had tornado warnings overnight. Two confirmed tornadoes (EF1 and EF0). Intense.