Cooler weather has arrived to the Pittsburgh area and will be sticking around all week.

Any Alert Days Ahead?  No

Aware: Days are getting shorter, with us saying goodbye to post-8 o'clock sunsets on either Thursday or Friday, depending on your location.

Things are cooling down.  A blast of cool air moves in today with highs expected to be around 10 degrees cooler than yesterday's 83° high in Pittsburgh.  I have highs hitting 73° in Pittsburgh today. While most of the day is expected to be dry, there will be a low shower and drizzle chance.  

The chance will be higher the further north you are. As we cool and are behind the cool front, wind speeds should also be a little gusty.  I have winds coming in out of the west at around 10mph this afternoon, but gusts will be up to near 20mph. If outside, it may be just enough to consider long sleeves instead of your usual summer outfit. Especially if not in direct sunshine.

This weather pattern is expected to be in place through at least next Sunday. 850mb temperatures will be near 10°c through at least Saturday. This is one of the basic tools and readings we use to determine daily high temperatures.  It isn't foolproof, but it works 95 percent of the time. These readings are a good 5 degrees cooler than what we normally would see this time of the year.  At the surface, this reads to a good 10-15 degree difference in what I expect temperatures will be and what 'normal' would be for this time of the year. 

Summer isn't quite done with us yet, as temperatures will return to the 80s by the middle to end of next week. But this is going to serve as our first real cool-down of the season.

The other thing that I am certainly keeping an eye on is our rain chances, with us now falling behind by 1.57" for the year.  All of the deficit and more (-1.71") has happened since June 1. That's the reason some of our area is now considered abnormally dry. Our next good chance for rain doesn't arrive until next week, with only a scattered rain chance with around 40 percent coverage happening on Thursday.

WEATHER LINKS:

Current Conditions | School Closings & Delays | Submit Your Weather Photos