Burghblizz

6 hours ago, Itstrainingtime said:

Here you go guys! Just for you.

Looks a lot like April ‘87....which would have been an all time storm if it were a month earlier.

....only 64 more runs!

Edit: maybe it was more the exact track than the time of year. Places to the south and south west did see 2’. We generally saw 10-12”, but a lot of places flipped to rain. That warm air being brought in to New York State in that model was western Pa for that storm. Kind of an odd look, but remember it well. 

8 hours ago, CoraopolisWx said:

Kinda disappointing how much cold air and moisture got wasted this season. 

This week would have been great for a big storm. 

I forget the pattern last year leading up to it, but we got around 15” post equinox....including that 10” storm.

So still hope to finish with a bang, but I’m done with cold/dry or warm/wet.

7 minutes ago, MAG5035 said:

Wow I'm not even to 3". My average is 2.7" attm. I did better on Friday morning's system than that. Have to see if this last band to the west makes it and gets us to the 3" mark here. The snow seemed to shut off a couple hours ahead of schedule. 

Similar story here....a lot of places got a sneaky 3-4” Thursday night, and that’s the general range for this as well.

59 minutes ago, MikeB_01 said:

Hopefully it holds together.



.

Looks like about ~4” in the Martins Ferry/Wheeling area, so some of that banding is starting to do its job.

31 minutes ago, MikeB_01 said:

I’ve been stuck in this super fine mist of a snow for the last 2 hours. Probably somewhere around 2” so far


.

I had a couple hours of big fatties, but then same story. Super fine needle flakes that never could get rolling. Have about 3” on the back porch, which is north facing and somewhat shaded.

18 minutes ago, MikeB_01 said:

With pretty much no change to the forecast. Kinda makes me wonder if someone over at the NWS took a little too much authority in making that call for the WSW. I don’t know the procedures but I’m sure a lot of people were shaking their heads at that


.

It was weird. A warning 24 hours out with a sub warning forecast. So basically they knocked an inch off their forecast and gave the correct headline....now most of the guidance aligns with it. Should be a nice afternoon. 

Model trends are better esp for the southern counties. RAP and GFS both have 6” well across the border, with a lot of areas in the 4”-5” range. RAP with 5 ish” in to AGC and PIT, and throwing up around 7” at LBE

Im going to say that the warm air advection has been slightly underdone, which in this case is to our advantage 

NWS went to Adv locally and kept the warning in Morgantown. Very strange how that was done.

nice little snow tongue sneaking up the Mon valley

18 minutes ago, MikeB_01 said:

 

I did notice the 3K went a little NW. Very slight. HRRR and RAP are all very similar. KPIT holding steady with its 4-6 in idea though. Even made a statement on twitter about how nothing has changed to their numbers.

The text forecasts in Westmoreland and Fayette actually say 4-8” total (I don’t mean aggregating the point and click numbers like people erroneously do, that is their actual stated total in the forecast).

So we’ll see. I’ve absolutely seen it a ton of times where a storm “slightly too far SE” outperforms guidance here. But the speed of this system scares me too much to bet on it. I hope they are right. 

4 minutes ago, ChalkHillSnowNut said:

So quiet in here.....no one following better recent trends?

Nothing earth shatteringly different. I think your area is best positioned in this area to push the 6” mark. A lot of the rest of the area still needs a push north. 

Just now, KPITSnow said:

The January storm...every model the night before but the euro showed us getting close to nothing. Even that morning as it was raining we were still under a WSW for 5-8 inches. We all saw that coming a couple days out.

The quick hit we got Thursday night, the day before we had a 30% chance of snow. Thursday morning they showed less than an inch.We didn’t get a WWA until it started to snow. 

 

They also busted pretty low on last weeks quick hit...I think they were 1-3 then had to up to 3-6 as the stprm

progressed.

Maybe....but splitting hairs. Point I was trying to make before is that I don’t  think they are going intentionally bullish to make up for bad calls. If anything, forecasts usually get slightly more conservative as a PR move.

i agree with you that they are definitely thinking it outperforms guidance at this point. But it’s what they think will happen. 

I’d probably go with 2-4” City and points NW, and 3-5” southern and eastern suburbs. 4-6” the border counties

Just now, stjbeautifulday said:

I think they are trying to cover their butts after all these bad calls.  It’s coming during the day and people will be out and about.  Weather.com says 1-3 inches for Moon still.  I’m so confused. 

I don’t think they have made a lot of bad calls this year. The Jan slop storm was almost impossible to make a good call. Would have had to go against all other forecasts.

These last couple smaller storms just happened to verify on the high end (which is great for us)

42 minutes ago, CoraopolisWx said:

Possibly PBZ is seeing that slight inverted trough feature on some of the guidance, and anticipating some WAA enhancement. 

Just a thought. 

Agree...that feature many times over performs in this scenario

Still bizzaire to go straight warning without a 6” average expected in the forecast

I’ll be in Greensburg tommorow, so still thinking a fair chance to squeeze out 4-5” there. South and eastern suburbs figure to do better than city and points NW

Need that little tick stronger and north that usually effs us when we don’t need it.

3.5” officially recorded bringing the season total to just over 32”

Looks like this was recorded primarily between 10 and 2. So not that dissimilar to last week....but much much lower impact coming in the middle of the night. Also it looks like it fell on to a much warmer ground, and so road cleanup was easier.

Hasnt turned out to be completely horrible this winter...a 6”+ snowfall Sunday would really help the overall feeling of this season. The NWS “experimental” probabilistic forecast puts this at about a 40-50% chance for most locations.

NAM is still a nice hit for Sunday. Just the GFS that’s looking flat. Still a couple days out.

While we are worried about that, it is snowing!

not surprisingly, advisory expanded to Allegheny county and south.

Back end coming quick but it’s going to be a real interesting couple hours if you are awake. Definitely have some model agreement of a quick thump. 

JV being JV for tonight. He is however at least admitting that accumulating snow is possible Sunday. His board earlier today said “snow shower” (singular) Sunday.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Verz/status/1101209662463070209?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet

that might be part of NWS apprehension....small window to get it done.

18Z NAM looking a little juicier for this first wave

Little more wiggle room than has been typical this winter...

HRRR showing a reverse tongue, with some heavier totals shooting up through the Mon Valley

NAM taken literally tonight is similar to last week in that it’s 3-4” in only a few hours. Although it looks to be more in the overnight hours. Don’t think this system is as dynamic, but it could be interesting for a couple inches.

7 minutes ago, CoraopolisWx said:

Euro nudged south a bit. Hopefully the trend continues.

Meet in the middle with GFS and we are looking decent

16 minutes ago, Mailman said:

Power was out here from 9:30pm to 4:00am.  I don't remember a long-lasting wind event like that.  It was hammering pretty good for a while. Wish we could've gotten that with the snow rates from the other morning.  Then again, my power would probably still be off.  Looks like cold settling in for a little bit as we begin March.  Be nice to get some wintry precipitation to go along with it this time. 

Agree with the poster above about the "downgrade" from High Wind Warning to an advisory.  Saw a lot of people commenting on it on Facebook.  

True Blizzards are the promised land....but if you prefer to be outside to experience the snow, those kind of winds are rough. 

45 minutes ago, north pgh said:

I am usually not critical of NWS Pittsburgh but I am disappointed in a decision they made last night. My mothers power went out last night around 6:30 pm and I had to go to her house and bring her to my house. This was around 8:00 pm. I walked her to my car and the winds were howling possibly the strongest sustained of the day. I got home and had trouble getting her out of the car and into my house because of the wind. I get in the house and within 15 minutes my power goes out. 2 big branches crash off of my pine tree in the back yard and the house is shaking in the dark. Then I log on to my iphone to get updates and I get this from NWS Twitter page. The High Wind Warning has been downgraded to a Wind Advisory for all but the eastern edge of our forecast area as wind gusts weaken below warning criteria this evening but remain elevated overnight.

For the next 5 or 6 hours after midnight I have no power and the house continues to shake with strong wind gusts over 50 mph or so. Did they really need to issue a downgrade at this time? Because when I told my wife this she thought things we getting worse outside. The only difference I saw was with the advisory winds were gusting to 50 and the warning winds were gusting to 60. What is the difference? It is damaging wind. By using the word downgrade how many people thought it was safer now and relax? 

I agree with you. It’s technically gusts over 58. But a lot of places were still very close and I think Washington, Pa gusted to 60 as late as 10:00 PM.

Plus like I said before, I don’t think the citizen observer data is as good. So I’m sure there were many other pockets that had those types of gusts late in to the evening.

Edit: some data to support your argument. KPIT hit 61 at 8:20, and KAGC hit 61 just after MIDNIGHT. The NWS office which is like a mile to the NW of the airport hit 65 MPH just before midnight. 

 So it’s not even correct on a technicality. It was a bad call during one of the more destructive weather days in awhile. 

Highest gusts in the area that I saw so far was KLBE at 66. AGC gusted to 60 and I believe PIT to 55. I doubt a lot of citizen observers are capturing correct gusts. They appear to be understated. 

This is no joke....Im not sure I remember a prolonged wind event like this where it’s hours and hours of it. It might be 3.13.93, although pure wind events don’t necessarily stick in my head. 

Had some sleet earlier when the temp was close to 40. Assuming steep lapse rates contributed to that.