RitualOfTheTrout

Its looking more and more like this season is only going to feature brief interludes of winter sandwiched between shutouts. Going to have to time something within one of those short windows I think. We keep getting "better-ish" looks on longer range but once we get closer in its not really a pattern change and after a few days we revert back to the base state. Would be nice to get a solid 2 week period of winter before January ends though, February Ninas are typically pretty bad. Looks like we have a small window upcoming Friday - Tuesday, maybe a little shortwave passes south of us Saturday night with some light snow. Its marginal temperature wise but its all we got right now.

Maybe a shot at a rumble of thunder. If we can get enough instability for lighting that would be a pretty unusual. Something weather wise to shoot for I guess. In addition to the high moisture content, CAMs are suggesting the nose of very warm air at around 850mb will also result in some modest elevated CAPE with values of 100-200 J/kg. While this isn`t generally considered a large amount of instability, this is quite a bit for the month of January. This instability paired with high moisture content and deep lift will likely yield efficient rain rates with embedded convective segments that may contain lightning/thunder. How rare is lightning in early January? The 1988- 2017 lightning climatology dataset shows only 1 CG strike in Allegheny County in the first week of January for that period. So bottom line... lightning is quite uncommon this time of year.

Looks like we at least go from zero chance close the blinds to closer to normal with a chance for snow by the end of the week.

I hear this, we have 3 German shepherds, the mud pain is real. Luckily they are well trained and only need to go out twice a day, but that's still 4*3*2 paws to towel off every day.

Discusting forecast for late Dec / early Jan.. .LONG TERM /FRIDAY NIGHT THROUGH WEDNESDAY/... As we head into New Year`s weekend and into the next work week,expect a period of unseasonably warm and humid air with a few days of rainfall.

Just looking at how the pattern is evolving hard to imagine we don't make it into the top 5. Looks way above average until at least the 7th with no temperatures below freezing. After that it's a crap shoot, but I'm not sold things flip to a good look. Ensembles look to be delaying the flip, although it gets noisy and low skill past day 8-10 anyways and it might just be more of a timing / step down process muddying things. Other thing to note though is by second week of January you don't need anomalously cold air / perfect setup for something to pop up so not trying to spread doom and gloom.

Yeah, no doubt snow with cold is awesome. I'd take less snow to have it fall in the low 20s and stick around for a couple days, especially this time of year with sun having little impact vs more snow that starts melting with temps rising above freezing before that last flake falls every time. Just my personal preference I guess, I know there are others that could care less about snow once it stops falling. Probably why I'm not as big into late feb and early march snow unless they are biggies.

Already a light at the end of the tunnel though on the ENS. If you can see the end of the torch on the models before it starts there are worse places to be. Need to see it stick as we move forward in time but right now I think if in another 5 days it still looks to flip around the Jan 7th-8th period we can have a sigh of relief. No doubt it's going to be a gross mud galore period and is lasting a little longer than I thought it might I was however prepared for Winter to be pretty variable with patterns flipping back and forth throughout the season. I think the fact this cold shot looked to be longer lived and with a few snow chances mixed in when we were on the other side looking ahead doesn't help with the optics of the situation either.

We beat it, official high was 12. Not bad overall, broke some records and had a white Christmas.

Merry Christmas! Enjoy the day, the cold, and the snow. Torch incoming but signs of the flip back as you said. Hopefully by mid week we have a good idea when the next window for snow opens up.

It's going to be close by the looks of it. Some WAA right now, but trade off is it's snowing lightly too.

NWS mentioned flurries and snow showers possible as weak shortwaves embedded in the flow periodically move through. Maybe that's what we are seeing?

I was outside for a bit, sure looks like some new light snow is falling.

Maybe won't technically count but good enough for that festive feel in my book. Your probably right about the wind, had it been a calm snow I bet we would have had it.

Nice. No question this air mass is legit. I'm not a big cold chaser perse but if we are within a record I'm all for breaking it.

Yeah, in the history books this day probably won’t look all that interesting. with Ohio having decent snow cover and the inch or so we got plus lack of lake influence for moderation I see no reason we can’t make a run for record low high tomorrow.

No doubt there will be isolated temporary blizzard conditions, just not sustained to meet criteria.

That's pretty impressive, it was 38 at 4:45, 30 degree drop in 3 hours.

Still snowing pretty steadily. Thankfully we got some heavier embedded bands to build after the front went through. No idea how much with the blowing but ground is covered

Radar not looking overly impressive to my eye, returns look to be weakening in Ohio. Front looks to be right on the border so we'll see if it fills in as it gets closer.

Not sure on the -36, NWS seems to think those types of numbers will be in the ridges. Last time for -20 -25 per NWS discussion was 2019. The last time Pittsburgh observed wind chills in the -20F range was January 30-31 2019.

Hopefully, would be nice if some of the liquid models show is actually wet snow. I think the slower the low is to deepen the further east it makes it before cutting North so any trend in that should help us. Prior when it was a blizzard for Chicago the further west was better due to it already undergoing intense deepening.

I kept waiting to see a phase, it was close a few times but just didn't have a deep enough trough to scoop it up. No doubt that would have been an even more prolific synoptic snow maker.

Maybe in the very higher elevations, but not really for us in the low lands. That air is bone dry continental Arctic air. The lakes add a source of moisture when we get NW go flow but also moderate the air mass, so colder temperatures than one might expect are possible despite the lack of snow cover.

Well... This should be fun to watch when the front rios through either way... Confidence is high that a drastic change in weather conditions will occur as a strong cold front races through the Ohio River Valley before dawn Friday. With the passage of the cold front expect the following: 1. Wind gusts will increase to 30-35 mph early Friday morning, 40-50 mph during the afternoon. Sustain winds of 20-25mph are likely. With steep low level lapse rates due to strong cold advection, 850mb winds (45-50kts) will have no trouble mixing to the surface. 2. Temperatures will drop 20 degrees in a short time frame (within 3-4 hours), creating a flash freeze risk. Note: With the combination of high wind gusts and single digit temperatures, wind chill values should also fall below zero. With this forecast package, a Wind Chill Watch has been issued across the entire area. A few time segments have been added for the onset time of the Arctic air and an increase in gusts. The Watch will likely be upgraded to Advisory/Warning in the next 12 to 24 hours. Right now, there is high confidence that the ridges will reach the threshold for a Warning. Elsewhere, the lowest wind chill value is -20F near I-80. 3. A sudden change in precipitation type will occur along the frontal boundary, rain changing to snow. With strong frontogenesis along the cold front, there is a chance of an intense snow band that would advance west to east during the Friday morning commute. The latest run of the NMB shows shallow instability (35-50J/kg) in some regions. Simulated hi-res radar depicts 25-40DBZ reflectivity along the frontal boundary. If this is all snow, it will heavily impact the region. Snow showers will prevail across the region the rest of Friday afternoon within the cold air mass. However, the intensity will wane in the absence of strong ascent. With snow ratios well above the climatological average (could be as high as 20:1), an additional 2+ inches is not out of the question through late Friday night.