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✨Pittsburgh PA ❄ Winter 2018-2019


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1 hour ago, TeaysValleyWV said:

Nice little snow burst going on here in Cranberry at daybreak.  At least a new inch since I brushed off yesterday's snow this morning from my measuring spot.

It's moving through here now, from the looks of it doubt we get an inch from it but gusty winds and low visibility. Everything has a new coating including roads. 

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14 hours ago, Rd9108 said:

Yeah unfortunately this threat is getting worse and worse. Maybe an inch or two if we are lucky but anything more is probably out of the possibility. 

When the threat looked better the front got hung up longer and we got hit by the wave developing on it. Not a high confidence setup to say the least but now that seems to have all shifted to the NE.  Hopefully we can pull off 1-2 to have on the ground for the 2 day arctic blast.

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These rain to snow scenarios rarely do well here. We get most of our moisture before the front moves through. Once it's through, there's not much left as the low races off. It's been that type of winter so far. Dustings of snow here and there that inflate our totals. When there's a storm, we get very little from it but still get the brutal cold that follows. Typical for this area really. Nothing new.

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Still holding out hope for something in the warning criteria like 5-8 by the end of winter. The way this winter is going it maybe hard to pull off until March or april kind of like last year. The models dont know what to do about the long range and honestly the euro flipped from warm up to cold in one run. 

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URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
National Weather Service Pittsburgh PA
1152 PM EST Mon Jan 28 2019

MDZ001-OHZ039>041-048>050-057>059-068-069-PAZ013-014-020-021-029-
031-073>076-WVZ001>004-012-021-509>514-291300-
/O.NEW.KPBZ.WW.Y.0009.190129T0600Z-190129T1500Z/
Garrett-Tuscarawas-Carroll-Columbiana-Coshocton-Harrison-
Jefferson OH-Muskingum-Guernsey-Belmont-Noble-Monroe-Lawrence-
Butler-Beaver-Allegheny-Washington-Greene-Westmoreland-
Westmoreland Ridges-Fayette-Fayette Ridges-Hancock-Brooke-Ohio-
Marshall-Wetzel-Marion-Monongalia-
Ridges of Eastern Monongalia and Northwestern Preston-Preston-
Eastern Preston-Western Tucker-Eastern Tucker-
Including the cities of Mountain Lake Park, Oakland MD,
Grantsville, New Philadelphia, Dover, Carrollton, Malvern,
East Liverpool, Salem, Columbiana, Coshocton, Cadiz,
Steubenville, Zanesville, Cambridge, Martins Ferry,
St. Clairsville, Caldwell, Woodsfield, New Castle, Ellwood City,
Butler, Aliquippa, Beaver Falls, Ambridge, Monaca,
Pittsburgh Metro Area, Washington, Canonsburg, Waynesburg,
Murrysville, Greensburg, New Kensington, Ligonier, Donegal,
Uniontown, Champion, Ohiopyle, Weirton, Follansbee, Wellsburg,
Wheeling, Moundsville, New Martinsville, Fairmont, Morgantown,
Coopers Rock, Kingwood, Bruceton Mills, Terra Alta, Rowlesburg,
Hazelton, Parsons, Hendricks, Saint George, Davis, Thomas,
and Canaan Valley
1152 PM EST Mon Jan 28 2019

...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IN EFFECT UNTIL 10 AM EST TUESDAY...

* WHAT...Light rain changing to snow. Rapidly falling temperatures
  may create flash freeze conditions. Total snow accumulations of
  less than one inch are expected for most of the area with one to
  two inches possible in the ridges.

* WHERE...Portions of southwest, west central and western
  Pennsylvania, east central Ohio, western Maryland and northern
  and northern panhandle of West Virginia.

* WHEN...Until 10 AM EST Tuesday.

* ADDITIONAL DETAILS...Plan on slippery road conditions. The
  hazardous conditions could impact the morning commute.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

A Winter Weather Advisory for snow means periods of snow will
cause primarily travel difficulties. Expect snow covered roads
and limited visibilities, and use caution while driving.

Please report snow or ice by calling 412-262-1988, posting to the
NWS Pittsburgh Facebook page, or using Twitter @NWSPittsburgh

&&

$$

 

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19 hours ago, MikeB_01 said:

Hi-Res models not very optimistic about the change over to snow. 

The wheels quickly fell off this setup.. Looks like all rain imby, snow pack that was down is a mess, would have been nice to have a fresh inch or 2 to go with the cold, but I guess frozen mud will have to do. :facepalm:

This type of outbreak would be awesome on the heels of a big storm, but this is really a quick hitter, 72 hours of cold. Don't get me wrong, the cold is serious and dangerous if you get caught out unprepared, but when you can see 50s a few days later, no dynamic squall line with a quick hitting heavy snow, and not even some high ratio LES to blow around it really takes the air out of the event for me.

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14 hours ago, Rd9108 said:

Still holding out hope for something in the warning criteria like 5-8 by the end of winter. The way this winter is going it maybe hard to pull off until March or april kind of like last year. The models dont know what to do about the long range and honestly the euro flipped from warm up to cold in one run. 

First week of Feb looks to be toast after the cold blast lifts out (maybe a little event Friday?) which sucks because Feb is typically money in a Nino winter, but this winter hasn't been a traditional Nino look. Maybe by the 7th-10th after a big cutter goes through we have more chances. I wouldn't rule out a bigger storm at this juncture, realistically we have 6 more weeks of winter, and it doesn't take much to get a big wet snow in early March that starts melting before the snow even stops, but adds up to a 4-6 inch event.

I've given up trying to get a handle on what is coming next, so many conflicting looks, enso state would argue against an MJO going ape in phases 4-7 but its happening, SSW would argue for significant blocking (-AO/-NAO) but the can keeps getting kicked. The -epo is to far west, which puts the mean trough in the west / central leaving higher heights in the east. Initially I thought this would be good, we want storms to track west vs riding the coast or out to sea, but we need some blocking to help keep wound up storms from going to Detroit.

At this point I wouldn't be shocked in any outcome. I'm still rooting for models to just flip to a sustained cold eastern trough for 2-3 weeks in Feb but could see more of the same, slop on the front / back of storms and a cold shot as they go past. I do worry we go from these storms that are just a bit to far west, to a big -NAO shows up out of nowhere and then the storms are to far east. I guess at this point we roll the dice as the current setup isn't going to yield a big storm as is.

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Not too surprised at the upcoming warm period.  I believe the MJO has a 7-10 day lag period, and it's been camped moderately in warm phases now since the 21st.  The AO is doing what it can to offset it, but even that looks transient and is likely to bounce back to positive before too long (as it did back in early December).  Other than lack of -NAO, our other big problem is the PNA is now stepping down to negative, and considering how poor the pacific has been this winter, that only makes things that much worse.  Given all the other conditions, the AO alone couldn't save us.

If the MJO continues to do laps in Phase 6, that's a real problem.  I wouldn't expect particularly wintry conditions until that forecast improves.  At this time of winter, Phases 8 thru 3 are ideal, and we've barely even touched the cold MJO phases this year (just five days or so in early January).  Outside of the active STJ moisture train, this has been much closer to a NINA winter rather than a NINO.

I estimate we're in for another two weeks (at least) of this current pattern before we should expect changes.  Unfortunately, that burns the first half of February, but maybe we can score something minor on Friday before the positive temp anomalies.  Somehow, Pittsburgh is already close to half the seasonal average with 17.6" this winter.  They've also recorded a foot of snow this month, which sounds high to me, though it appears we've nickle-and-dimed our way to something reasonable.  It's still below normal, but not severely so.

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10 minutes ago, jwilson said:

Not too surprised at the upcoming warm period.  I believe the MJO has a 7-10 day lag period, and it's been camped moderately in warm phases now since the 21st.  The AO is doing what it can to offset it, but even that looks transient and is likely to bounce back to positive before too long (as it did back in early December).  Other than lack of -NAO, our other big problem is the PNA is now stepping down to negative, and considering how poor the pacific has been this winter, that only makes things that much worse.  Given all the other conditions, the AO alone couldn't save us.

If the MJO continues to do laps in Phase 6, that's a real problem.  I wouldn't expect particularly wintry conditions until that forecast improves.  At this time of winter, Phases 8 thru 3 are ideal, and we've barely even touched the cold MJO phases this year (just five days or so in early January).  Outside of the active STJ moisture train, this has been much closer to a NINA winter rather than a NINO.

I estimate we're in for another two weeks (at least) of this current pattern before we should expect changes.  Unfortunately, that burns the first half of February, but maybe we can score something minor on Friday before the positive temp anomalies.  Somehow, Pittsburgh is already close to half the seasonal average with 17.6" this winter.  They've also recorded a foot of snow this month, which sounds high to me, though it appears we've nickle-and-dimed our way to something reasonable.  It's still below normal, but not severely so.

Yeah, we haven’t had a winter below 20” in almost 30 years. The nickel and dimes add up, even in extremely boring winters like this one. Northern suburbs did well this past weekend.

Hoping for a nice finish (amazing that we are even mentioning  “finish” already, it seems like it just started)

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2 hours ago, Rd9108 said:

Maybe we get lucky on Friday and the clipper over performs. We usually are good at small over performers. Obviously wont be much but even a nice 2-4 snowfall in daylight would help get some positive vibes going in here. 

GFS and NAM look weaker and further south.  CMC is sort of in-between, while the ICON and the FV3 both look pretty decent.

Given the possibility of high ratios for this snowfall, I could see a surprise 3-5" solution as possible.  Maybe not likely, but possible.

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Special Weather Statement

Special Weather Statement
National Weather Service Pittsburgh PA
732 PM EST TUE JAN 29 2019

PAZ021-022-029-073-300100-
Armstrong-Westmoreland-Washington-Allegheny-
732 PM EST TUE JAN 29 2019

...AN AREA OF HEAVY SNOW WILL AFFECT EAST CENTRAL WASHINGTON...
SOUTHEASTERN ALLEGHENY...NORTHWESTERN WESTMORELAND AND SOUTH CENTRAL
ARMSTRONG COUNTIES...

At 731 PM EST, an area of heavy snow was located over Pleasant Hills,
or near McKeesport, moving east at 30 mph.

Locations impacted include...
Pittsburgh...                     Penn Hills...
Mount Lebanon...                  Bethel Park...
Monroeville...                    McMurray...
Greensburg...                     McKeesport...
Jeannette...                      Gastonville...
Plum...                           West Mifflin...

This includes the following highways...
  Pennsylvania Turnpike between mile markers 52 and 71.
  Interstate 79 in Pennsylvania between mile markers 55 and 57.
  Interstate 376 in Pennsylvania between mile markers 72 and 84.

Visibility will drop quickly to near zero in this area of heavy snow.

Icy roads are possible as snow melts and refreezes.

LAT...LON 4021 8006 4039 8012 4058 7952 4029 7941
TIME...MOT...LOC 0031Z 256DEG 28KT 4033 7993

$$

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5 hours ago, jwilson said:

GFS and NAM look weaker and further south.  CMC is sort of in-between, while the ICON and the FV3 both look pretty decent.

Given the possibility of high ratios for this snowfall, I could see a surprise 3-5" solution as possible.  Maybe not likely, but possible.

CMC trending that way for Friday.

 

 

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Im not great at reading SkewTs and certainly dont fully understand the Dendrite Grown Zone (maybe @RitualOfTheTrout can chime in), but the DGZ looks pretty deep on the models for friday. I would assume that the model take this into account when it comes to their snowfall maps, but again im not sure.

However, the depth of the DGZ being impressive and surface temps being in the low teens is something to think about. Recipe for over performer?

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9 hours ago, MikeB_01 said:

Im not great at reading SkewTs and certainly dont fully understand the Dendrite Grown Zone (maybe @RitualOfTheTrout can chime in), but the DGZ looks pretty deep on the models for friday. I would assume that the model take this into account when it comes to their snowfall maps, but again im not sure.

However, the depth of the DGZ being impressive and surface temps being in the low teens is something to think about. Recipe for over performer?

I won't pretend to be an expert here, but looking at this Skew-t we do have a deep saturated (Temp and DP lines are very close together) through the DGZ (area of atmosphere approximately between -10C and -20C) and we have some reasonable Omega (lift).

This is why simply saying oh it's cold we should get 20:1 ratios is not the best way to figure it out. Other things go into play too, ie if we had really strong winds in the DGZ to the surface even if there was great snow growth the crystals would get broken apart and reduce ratios. The best omega here is outside the DGZ so that may offset the snow growth to some degree.

gfs_2019013006_fh54_sounding_40.56N_79_90W.thumb.png.bda5a26bf636cce8a8bcb7ae812ae91f.png

Now the next panel the DGZ isn't as large, but it's still saturated and the best omega is within the DGZ. gfs_2019013006_fh60_sounding_40.56N_79_78W.thumb.png.4b23beee662b841e0ef9a9f84130a0c0.png

All that being said, given the current modeling I'd say we should be close to making the most of what qpf we get. Like I said, I'm no expert, and there is more than just this trying to figure out the ratios.

If the map you are looking at is based on a 10:1 ratio I don't think it actually takes this into account. My guess is the algorithm says, at the start of this observation are all levels of the atmosphere below freezing? Yes, ok then assume all qpf gets converted to snow at a 10:1 ratio. I'm sure its not quite that simple but you get the idea. This works fine if its a cold storm to get a general idea. I think Kuchera takes the temps at different levels of the atmosphere into account at various times between the start and end of the sounding. When you have a warm nose surging northward the 10:1 maps will almost always over estimate snow due to this and Kuchera should be more accurate.

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