Dangerously cold weather remains in place today for the Pittsburgh area
Dangerously cold weather remains in place today for the Pittsburgh area.
Any Alert Days Ahead? There are First Alert Weather Days in place through Sunday due to cold mornings.
Aware: Cold weather advisories are in place this morning & Thursday morning. Wind chills as low as -15° possible
The cold isn't going anywhere anytime soon. A VERY cold airmass is in place and will stay in place through at least Friday. I have temperatures both today and Thursday mornings a couple of degrees below 0°. The coldest mornings are looking like they'll occur on Friday and Saturday mornings. I have Friday's low bottoming out around -4°. I have Saturday's low at -6°. It is rare for Pittsburgh to see temperatures that low, and we don't do it every year. I am still a bit skeptical that we will get down to these low temperatures and even less so as data has come in this morning.
I did adjust Saturday morning's low up a couple of degrees due to the changes to just how cold the airmass in place will be during this time. To get this cold we already need near-perfect conditions for cooling, including light winds and clear skies. The airmass will be cold enough with dew points around -10°, but they were even colder 24 hours ago.
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Looking ahead, I have highs today hitting the mid to low teens. When it comes to high temperatures, today may be the coldest of the week. Highs will be in the mid to low teens also on Thursday, Friday, & Saturday. The average high for this time of the year is 36 degrees so we will be well below that. We do see temperatures slowly ticking up next week, with highs in the 20s on Monday. I have highs in the mid to low 30s on Wednesday and Thursday next week.
Baby steps, right?
A weather system is expected to impact the East Coast this weekend
I do want to quickly mention a weather system that is expected to impact places along the East Coast starting Saturday night. For us, some data is showing the track of this clipper low just to our south, with places like Morgantown seeing some decent snowfall. At some point, the snow will impact the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The impact of the snow on the Turnpike should be to the east of the Laurel Highlands. The track of this system is not set in stone right now, and model data has really struggled to get a handle on it. Some of that is to be expected, with mid-level arctic lows being some of the hardest systems to forecast more than 72 hours out. While I don't think this system will have much of an impact on us, I can't rule it out. Over the past day, the trough that was keeping the storm track far away from us here has weakened, allowing the track to be closer to us.
If that trend continues, you can't rule out the chance of snow sneaking into our area. Earlier this week, the Euro was showing this system impacting parts of western Pennsylvania. Now it is the GFS long-range model grabbing onto a northern solution, even if it isn't a huge impact on where we are. We are watching it.