Pittsburgh Summer? 2025

[TheClimateChanger]

15 minutes ago, TimB said:

Looks like both the high and low temperatures today at PIT are going to come in below normal. The last time that happened was June 2nd.

Upper 50s looking likely tonight. Brief cooldown with heat returning on Wednesday. 8” of Reddit rain nowhere to be found.

[TimB]

8 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

Upper 50s looking likely tonight. Brief cooldown with heat returning on Wednesday. 8” of Reddit rain nowhere to be found.

If you asked a random yinzer if July has been rainy, they’d say yes. But the airport’s precip deficit for the month will surpass an inch tomorrow.

[jwilson]

I'm guessing rainfall deficits or surpluses are quite localized over the last few weeks.  Locally, I think, we've dodged most of the rain, so July has felt quite a bit drier than either May or June here.

[TimB]

With PIT officially dropping to 58 this morning, we avoid tying the record at the airport site for warmest July minimum, which was 59 in 1955.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming of heat, humidity and eventually daily rain chances for the weekend.

[TheClimateChanger]

I don't know what's going on with the airport thermometers this year. It's bizarre. Like all the airports dropped 2-3F, every single one of them? Especially AGC and HLG. They went from one of the warmest spots in the PBZ CWA last July to among the coldest by mean maximum temperature this year?

AGC has suddenly become one of the coldest spots in the entire CWA outside of some high mountain sites for daily high temperatures. PIT airport went from 1.7F warmer than the Moon Township COOP in July 2024, to 0.9F colder this July. The lows are still warmer, but they have dropped a bunch too relative to the COOP sites. Last year, 4 airport sites had the warmest daily low temperatures in July. This year, the highest is like 5th of all sites. 

[TheClimateChanger]

47 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

I don't know what's going on with the airport thermometers this year. It's bizarre. Like all the airports dropped 2-3F, every single one of them? Especially AGC and HLG. They went from one of the warmest spots in the PBZ CWA last July to among the coldest by mean maximum temperature this year?

AGC has suddenly become one of the coldest spots in the entire CWA outside of some high mountain sites for daily high temperatures. PIT airport went from 1.7F warmer than the Moon Township COOP in July 2024, to 0.9F colder this July. The lows are still warmer, but they have dropped a bunch too relative to the COOP sites. Last year, 4 airport sites had the warmest daily low temperatures in July. This year, the highest (KPIT) is like 5th of all sites (i.e., 4 non-airport sites have higher mean low temps). 

Table attached below shows the difference between mean low temperature for 1st 22 days of July 2025 versus mean low temperature for July 2024. 51 sites have data for both years. Missing data not a significant factor, only 7 of the sites have more than 3 days missing through the 1st 22 days of the month. It is a factor for some individual sites, e.g. Pike Island shows an 8.7F increase but had 15 missing days in July 2024.

49 of 51 warmer. Exceptions: Donegal 2NW Coop, bizarrely 3.3F cooler, and DUJ Airport, 0.5F cooler. The mean difference is +3.2F across the 51 sites. 4 of the 6 smallest increases are the airport sites - DUJ (0.5F cooler), AGC (1.0F warmer), MGW (1.4F warmer), and PIT (1.7F warmer). Compared to the mean (average) change across the 51 sites, DUJ is 3.7F cooler, AGC is 2.2F cooler, MGW is 1.8F cooler, and PIT is 1.5F cooler.

The smaller airfields seem to be unaffected. AFJ is +5.6 for the year on year (or 2.4F warmer than the mean change) and BTP is +4.1F for the year on year comparison (or 0.9F warmer than the mean change).

[TheClimateChanger]

I know there was some discussion about PIT and AGC maybe running warm at times last year, but it definitely seems to have been corrected. Arguably running a little on the cool side this year compared to surrounding observations, especially AGC. The official tally might have this July cooler than last, but overall it's been a bit warmer just about everywhere in the region (especially with the overnight minima).