Pittsburgh/Western PA WINTER ‘25/‘26

[RitualOfTheTrout]

Heavy snow. Kicking back with a couple mad elf beers and watching A Christmas Carol. 

[wstaude]

Very peaceful night for a walk, still not too cold. Just about 5" in Elliott.

[MAG5035]

As of midnight.

[SteelCity87]

40 minutes ago, MAG5035 said:

As of midnight.

Glad we can stop hearing about that now 

[SteelCity87]

Awesome storm. Guessing I ended up near 6" or so. Beautiful outside. Took a nice jebwalk earlier which was long overdue 

[Burghblizz]

Pretty impressive to have a clipper with  no real surface low and no lake enhancement, deliver 4-7”. 

[Gordo74]

Finished just over 6.5” with a small potential for a bit of extra today with lake effect. What a wonderful storm!

[ChalkHillSnowNut]

Just measured a fluffy 10”! Not looking forward to the end of the week now 

[Ahoff]

I guess 4" in one day is still possible, lol!  And in December no less.  Just kidding.

[Burghblizz]

8 hours ago, RitualOfTheTrout said:

Heavy snow. Kicking back with a couple mad elf beers and watching A Christmas Carol. 

I think the bartender screed up and poured me a 16 ounce Mad Elf last night, instead of whatever smaller pour was standard. Added to a very festive night. 

[colonel717]

Going with 6.75 after some settling and drifting. It shows how my eyes are deceiving. Yesterday as it started after couple hours in I though I had 1 in or so but it was over 2 inches. When I woke this morning I thought I was over 8 inches but didn't make 7.  So at about 11.4 so far. 2 - 4+ storms...Hmmm

[TimB]

Can’t complain about this event. Probably 5-6” imby.

[colonel717]

Looks like a nice band setting up NE AGC.

[Burghblizz]

4 minutes ago, colonel717 said:

Looks like a nice band setting up NE AGC.

Been watching that about 10 miles north of me and hallucinating it sinking south. It might be starting to

[colonel717]

GEFS hinting at some post frontal snows Friday but we know how those normally go. Then we will see how things shake out after Christmas.

[RitualOfTheTrout]

16 minutes ago, Burghblizz said:

Been watching that about 10 miles north of me and hallucinating it sinking south. It might be starting to

It keeps pivoting / breaking up over me. Mainly just on and off light snow, but adds to the scene. 

[Gordo74]

6 minutes ago, RitualOfTheTrout said:

It keeps pivoting / breaking up over me. Mainly just on and off light snow, but adds to the scene. 

It’s been sitting right over my place in northwest Westmoreland all morning. Moderate to heavy at times. Picked up another 1.5” so far with it still going. Sitting at 8”. It’s wonderful.

[TheClimateChanger]

Finished up with about 5 1/4” of snow.

[MikeB_01]

6.25”. Can’t wait to get some more snow globe vibes today


.

[TheClimateChanger]

11 hours ago, TimB said:

If that final NWS obs comes in at 3.9”, it’s moot what anyone got in their backyard, and the streak will continue.

I don’t even know where this myth came from that I predicted no more 4” daily snows. If you go back to the *unedited* post in question, I said “you have to expect that breaks soon” before jokingly posing the question whether it would never happen again. Which is a reasonably way to cope with nearly 4 years of no bona fide storms.

[RitualOfTheTrout]

5 hours ago, Burghblizz said:

Pretty impressive to have a clipper with  no real surface low and no lake enhancement, deliver 4-7”. 

This event checked a lot of boxes, long duration, daytime, cold during and after. Measured close to 6.

[Burghblizz]

50 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

I don’t even know where this myth came from that I predicted no more 4” daily snows. If you go back to the *unedited* post in question, I said “you have to expect that breaks soon” before jokingly posing the question whether it would never happen again. Which is a reasonably way to cope with nearly 4 years of no bona fide storms.

This period has been underwhelming as a snow fan, but calendar day stats are deceiving and this forgets a lot of events in that time. I’ve cracked 4” 8 times since 2021 IMBY, and 3 times in the last 365 days. By 2030, our “reset” 30 year average will very likely either be around where it’s been, or finally tick down a few inches to wobble back to where it was 10 and 20 years ago. It won’t dramatically go down. 
 

And I think that’s the point I’m (and some others) were making. There wasn’t some brave new world starting in 2021 where we suddenly will start averaging 27” a year for the next 30 years. I’m all for global, long term, climatological concerns - but the impact on sensible weather here will be slow, and will show ebs and flows. 

 

   On 11/20/2025 at 9:43 AM, TheClimateChanger said: 

It's been an incredible 1,348 days since the last calendar day with 4" of snow. You have to think eventually that breaks, or do you guys think it is no longer possible to see 4" of snow in a single day at PIT? 

[TimB]

1 hour ago, TheClimateChanger said:

I don’t even know where this myth came from that I predicted no more 4” daily snows. If you go back to the *unedited* post in question, I said “you have to expect that breaks soon” before jokingly posing the question whether it would never happen again. Which is a reasonably way to cope with nearly 4 years of no bona fide storms.

With the 5.0” recorded yesterday, that was the 1372nd day in a row with 5” or less, currently in 2nd place and just 143 days behind the record of 1515 days from 2014-2018. 

[RitualOfTheTrout]

1 hour ago, colonel717 said:

GEFS hinting at some post frontal snows Friday but we know how those normally go. Then we will see how things shake out after Christmas.

That's probably how we will have to get snow with a -pna over the next couple weeks. Cold front goes through then you time a follow up wave while you have the cold, then it warms back up, rinse and repeat. 

[TimB]

3 minutes ago, Burghblizz said:

This period has been underwhelming as a snow fan, but calendar day stats are deceiving and this forgets a lot of events in that time. I’ve cracked 4” 8 times since 2021 IMBY, and 3 times in the last 365 days. By 2030, our “reset” 30 year average will very likely either be around where it’s been, or finally tick down a few inches to wobble back to where it was 10 and 20 years ago. It won’t dramatically go down. 
 

And I think that’s the point I’m (and some others) were making. There wasn’t some brave new world starting in 2021 where we suddenly will start averaging 27” a year for the next 30 years. I’m all for global, long term, climatological concerns - but the impact on sensible weather here will be slow, and will show ebs and flows. 

 

 

   On 11/20/2025 at 9:43 AM, TheClimateChanger said: 

It's been an incredible 1,348 days since the last calendar day with 4" of snow. You have to think eventually that breaks, or do you guys think it is no longer possible to see 4" of snow in a single day at PIT? 

The thing I’ll add here, however, is that the new averages will replace the following:

1992-93 (72.1”) with 2022-23 (17.6”)

1993-94 (76.8”) with 2023-24 (16.3”)

1995-96 (74.5”) with this winter (TBD)

 

So that’s 4” off the seasonal normal right there, unless some of the other corresponding winters can outdo their ‘90s counterparts (2021-22 and 2024-25 did by about 10” each, so add back a fraction of an inch).

[Burghblizz]

7 hours ago, Burghblizz said:

Pretty impressive to have a clipper with  no real surface low and no lake enhancement, deliver 4-7”. 

Probably have to modify this to more like 5”-8” if you look at the more recent time stamps. The non-ridges winner seems to be in from around New Stanton towards to near Latrobe. A couple 10” reports. 

[Mailman]

5.5" here.

[Burghblizz]

1 minute ago, TimB said:

The thing I’ll add here, however, is that the new averages will replace the following:

1992-93 (72.1”) with 2022-23 (17.6”)

1993-94 (76.8”) with 2023-24 (16.3”)

1995-96 (74.5”) with this winter (TBD)

 

So that’s 4” off the seasonal normal right there, unless some of the other corresponding winters can outdo their ‘90s counterparts (2021-22 and 2024-25 did by about 10” each, so add back a fraction of an inch).

That’s a fair point. But some of those years right before and right after were painfully low. So those got balanced out a bit. I don’t think the 90s as a whole were dramatically higher than the 30 year average. Maybe a little bit. 

[TimB]

Anyway, from the standpoint of not fretting about whether or not our annual snowfall is declining and just enjoying what we have, yesterday’s most recent NWS forecast just before the snow started was pretty much spot on with where totals ended up. It’s rare that totals get boosted before the event and then we hit them almost exactly.

[TimB]

Just now, Burghblizz said:

That’s a fair point. But some of those years right before and right after were painfully low. So those got balanced out a bit. I don’t think the 90s as a whole were dramatically higher than the 30 year average. Maybe a little bit. 

There were some garbage years in the 90s and we still have 96-97, 97-98, 98-99 and 99-00 to replace, none of which were good and only one was even close to the seasonal normals. So yes, we could still get some of it back.