TheClimateChanger

There were definitely still some piles near my place in some of the larger parking lots, at least until Friday or Saturday morning.

Would be crazy if we had two straight sub-20" winters at the airport. That was one of the few redeeming qualities of the Pittsburgh climate noted during the March 2018 storm. I was looking at that thread a couple weeks ago, trying to find some of our most recent, bigger storms. On the plus side, one frequent complaint in that thread was the I-95 corridor getting clobbered all the time, and that activity seems to have died down in recent years.

Also climbing on this list. I know people hate when I do this, but it's just a fact. I included enough years to get to 2002, as that was the prior warmest December & January combo observed at KPIT. Despite no recent years being particularly close to Top 10 warmest for December & January, torchy Februarys in 2017 and last year have those winter seasons at 10th warmest [tied with 1918-19 & 1997-98] and 8th warmest, respectively.

How does the monthly precipitation total rank for January 2024?

Up to 5.02” of precipitation on the month, which is good for 9th most in the threaded record. Actually, back to 1836 if you include the Allegheny Arsenal records as in the NWS Pittsburgh table: https://www.weather.gov/pbz/climate Some more rain moving in this morning, so there will be an opportunity to move up on the list. Looks like only two wetter Januarys since 1950: 1978 & 2005.

Yes. I wasn’t sharing for the commentary, just for the track. But I had the same thought. A track right over New York City and into north central Pennsylvania isn’t exactly ideal for snow from the city north into Boston, regardless of the airmass in place.

Only possible on a poorly sited, warm-biased rooftop station. Snow that heavy should drop the surface air temperature to 32 or 33.

Some of you have unrealistic expectations. Climate is not static. It’s probably the case that snowfall over the last seven years is more normal for DC’s climate today than snowfall decades ago. Just look at temperatures, the mean for December & January is 8th warmest overall dating to the early 1870s, yet 6 of the preceding 22 winters were as warm or warmer over that time frame. Two others are within a half degree (2017, 2020). Counting this winter, fully 9 of the past 23 winters had a December & January mean of at least 42F - a reading that in the past would be considered extreme. That means these conditions are more or less normal over the past quarter century. This is not an atypical DC winter - this is a typical DC winter of the 21st century. There is a very strong negative correlation between temperature and snowfall, so it only stands to reason that snowfall, on the average, would be less. Also 80 degree readings in January might not be that extreme. Yes, it’s only happened once in recorded history now. But in the current climate era, it might be an event expected to occur once a decade or so. We don’t have enough data to say so.

Good stuff. Here's the same comparison, except with the city that fans of old school TWC might recall as "the best location in nation - Cleveland, Ohio." @michsnowfreak put the 2003-04 snow hole out of his memory. Don't know what was going on in 1918-19, it's more than a foot below any other year.

Let's hope this is erroneous. National Weather Service : Observed Weather for past 3 Days : Stafford, Stafford Regional Airport

That's at least 3 monthly records just in the past 12 months - 78+, 1/26/2024; 80F on 2/23/2023; and 100F on 9/6/2023.

Wow, incredible stuff. Just blowing away the monthly record.

Nah, DuBois is more central than western. The airport just happens to be over the border in Jefferson County, so it falls within NWS Pittsburgh's CWA.

000SXUS71 KPBZ 261057RERDUJRECORD EVENT REPORTNATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PITTSBURGH PA555 AM EST FRI JAN 26 2024...RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT DUBOIS PA...THE TEMPERATURE AT DUBOIS AIRPORT ROSE TO 60F AT 543 AM EST THIS MORNING. THIS IS RECORD HIGH FOR THE DATE. THE PREVIOUS RECORD WAS 55F IN 1973. THE TEMPERATURE MAY RISE FURTHER THIS MORNING SO THIS INFORMATION IS PRELIMINARY. $$CRAVEN

MDT struggling. I guess that's what happens when you take temperatures right next to a freezing cold river.

Well, I don't think I chased them to Discord. It was one of the last posts in the thread, because they had already moved to Discord.

Good thing this is the banter thread. It looks like 40N has been the cutoff between huge drops in seasonal snowfall south of that line, and much smaller changes north. @MikeB_01 got me playing around on xmACIS again. And, man, some places not too much further south have been absolutely hammered over the past 50 years. Charleston, WV St Louis, MO

Shows -5 to -25 percent for annual snowfall for Des Moines. Mostly smoothing, I believe. Even using the annual numbers, DSM shows a slight positive trend [almost flat]. But most locations in the midwest show a much stronger negative trend over that period. But yeah, definitely a much higher percentage of snow is falling in meteorological winter - and particularly, January and February - than prior decades, in most locations.

Keep in mind that data is subject to smoothing, and there can be variances. The linear regression at PIT over that interval is actually positive, with a slope of +0.05" (or a gain of about 2.5" over 50 years). But most locations around us are negative, and substantially so. Cleveland, for instance, shows a negative slope of -0.29" per year (or a loss of about 14.5" over 50 years). So it's sensitive to start and ending dates - 1973-1974 was a historically bad winter for Pittsburgh, but not as bad elsewhere.

I didn't even bring up climate change, to be honest. I thought it was interesting. It's not some random record for consecutive days above a random temperature... it was noting that, hey, 2/3rds of the way through met. winter and this has been the warmest of any of our lives. We have all lived through some real clunkers, I think it's noteworthy when, with one month remaining in meteorological winter, we are warmest of record at KPIT and warmest overall in the threaded record in 74 years. I think some are just frustrated. For the record, just factoring in yesterday's blowtorch, brings the two-month average up to 37.4F. I mean that's not exactly ideal for winter weather. Hell, the warmest at KPIT from 12-1 to 1-31 currently is 36.4F, set in the winter of 2001-02 so we could potentially blast by that by a full degree.