TheClimateChanger

Look at this cope. 804-hour ensemble mean and control run. I'm old enough to remember when every 384 hour run in the wintertime had more snow than this. For Pittsburgh (and much of the region, for that matter), the ensemble mean looks below average to me. A foot over 35 days in the heart of winter? The control run looks about average, maybe a bit above (16-18 inches around Pittsburgh). Sure this would be a godsend compared to the last couple of years, but it certainly isn't anything unusual outside of the NYC to New England region [which probably won't happen because this is an 804 hour model run]. I love how he focuses on the control run showing 30 inches in NYC - how about it showing an inch in Minneapolis, and only a foot in the UP of Michigan? More snow in west Texas than Marquette?

Maybe 2024 will be better.

Looks like it. This is averaged by month. Given today's observed weather and the forecast for the remainder of the week, I can't see the December monthly mean falling enough to change the annual mean. PIT Airport Pittsburgh threaded record

Also of note, this is shaping up to be the warmest running 30-year average in the Chicago threaded weather record. Prior to the current 30-year period, all of the other top ten warmest were from the warmer Midway site [with, in a handful of cases, some years from the downtown city station]. Now that ORD has crossed the proverbial "Rubicon" in a sense, with the current running 30-year mean leapfrogging all of the older Midway records, I suspect from here on out, it will resemble the MKE and DTW trends, with each and every year, slowly but inexorably climbing higher until the end of meaningful time.

Just relentless warming on the running 30-year mean at this point - every year inexorably climbing higher and higher. The only thing that caused a brief pause was a chilly 2014. By comparison, here are the record low 30-year means:

For informational purposes, here are the top 20 5-year snowfalls at MDT:

Assuming less than 3.5 inches falls between now and the end of the month, this is the third lowest 5-year snowfall on record at MDT - behind only the 5-year periods ending on 12/31/1934 & 12/31/1992.

Picked up around an inch in my backyard.

Finally starting to accumulate a bit here. Temp is down to 31.8F.

Plenty of these still hanging around too.

It looks like snow, but I think it’s ice from the skating rink.

Maybe it's just me, but I'm not overly enthused by little more than a half inch of snowfall modeled over a 10-day period, when the current average single day snowfall is 0.3" and rising.

Up to at least 54 at Milwaukee, which would be good for 3rd warmest (tied) on today's date. Yesterday was also tied for 3rd warmest for that date. Another degree would move today into second place. But look at #1, wow! Crazy two-day torch two years ago.

Meteor shower tonight. I’ve seen two in the last 15 minutes.

I shared this in the Pittsburgh area thread, but figured it would be relevant here as well since there are frequent complaints about the airport readings. I have been seeing a lot of complaints about airport readings everywhere.

Interesting. Has snowfall increased or decreased over that time?

If we just continuously move our temperature measurements to cooler and cooler locations, we can will away the warming. I think suburban Western Chester County looks like an ideal candidate to utilize for the DC/Baltimore metro. When they moved the official Johnstown station from the city to the top of a mountain, it completely eliminated the warming. Are there any mountains near CXY/MDT?

On the plus side, looks like we may have a green Christmas this year instead of the more typical brown.

Even the NWS is punting the rest of December:

Averaging by month (which applies the current mean for December), we have a 0.5F cushion over 2016, 2012, 1991 & 1949. That means the final monthly mean could fall off a full 6F [6/12 = 0.5] and we'd still tie those years using monthly averaging. I'm kind of doubting December's mean falls off that much over the next three weeks given the current modeling. Note using daily averaging, 2012, 1991 & 1949 bump up one place with a mean of 54.3F.

Not out of the question that we could surpass 2012 for warmest year on record since the official observation site moved out of the city, and warmest overall in the threaded record since 1931. The odds are certainly increasing.

Still the second warmest December 8 on record, dating back 150 years. You can’t complain about that.