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We’re the snownut hole

Randomness

And whatever snow other places around here are getting won't stick today. .we average about 50 inches of snow a year. Not all of it sticks. It doesn't need to stick to count as snow. A few days ago we had a micron stick but the official snow totals at nws were about 2.5 inches.

I blame the person that asked “which neighborhoods don’t get snow?”

I think it is the rivers, the hills and subsequent river valleys at this altitude (as in, low enough to make a difference), and to a much lesser extent the heat island nature of urban areas (although I would think Pittsburgh is too small to really contribute).

Which mountain are you wanting snow at? 7 springs and wisp are getting it.

We call this the Pittsburgh vortex.

Every time a big storm is expected, the clouds suddenly part around the city and we get nothing.

• "We" = my wife and I. ** I would also like a meteorological explanation of this.

Yep, my neighbor was all excited to teach from home today and now I wonder if they will still do this or just have everyone come in person.

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Hi, since everyone else's comments are conjecture...

We are in a dry slot. Low pressure systems are often pulling in warm, moist air from the south and cool, dry air from the north as they develop and rotate. Pittsburgh is in a bad spot because often times the mountain ridges to our east will help facilitate pockets of air that is either too dry or too warm for snow.

I can't attach a picture, so here's a link with a nice illustration of a dry slot

https://www.wkbn.com/weather/does-bad-weather-skip-youngstown-radar-holes-and-their-local-effect/

It’s called a Radar Hole

“Snow was probably occurring over the radar at this time, but dry air between the clouds and the ground was causing the snow to evaporate before it hit the ground. Therefore, there was no snow showing up on radar.

This phenomenon is called “virga” and it is very common at the onset of wintry precipitation events.

Eventually, the atmosphere begins to saturate and the “radar hole” will close up as the precipitation gets closer to ground level.”

My kid’s daycare was so excited to potentially close and still charge us money… poor them.

All teachers and students must wear their PJs inside out the night before to evoke the snow fairies.

The scientific term is called "The Pittsburgh Bubble" I made it myself, tyvm! I've noticed this for years, usually storms roll through and Pittsburgh has this nice bubble around it.

Here's my risky click of the day, wish me luck 🤞

This is the only answer

lmfao on any other day I wouldn't trust me, but when it comes to the weather I'm too big of a nerd to be anything but a straight shooter lol

correct 7springs has been getting some good weekday snow here and there…which means i need snow here to get off of work

the slot, how’s the slot?

Shut up Lenny Dykstra.

The plain kind. No powdered sugar.

Perogie gas dome...

Ahh. Makes sense.

There any bushes outside probly or….???

You'll do it when you get up here.

They heard about the neighborhood with no snow…

Interesting, I thought a dry slot was more in the southwest and legit meant dry. Where you'd have rain come from the Pacific and then just not hit a city/town for whatever reason. I've lived in a couple of places where that's happened but Pittsburgh gets rain. I'm no expert, just what I thought

winter storms are insanely intricate and complicated, this thing dropped a foot of snow in Oklahoma and tornadoes in Texas at the same time yesterday. It's really cool to learn about them, but once you start, it's easy to understand why they're so hard to forecast... particularly here.

At my house we’ve dubbed it the “weather hole” and 2022 was the year of boring weather, thanks to the Weather Hole^(TM).

guys it finally started snowing !

Yeah I was kinda excited for a 2 hour delay today too bad

If the slot's dry, you're doing something wrong.

This is in addition to what u/ballsonthewall said: It probably also has some to do with the urban heat island effect, which is more severe is summer, but still impacts weather in the winter. Basically, we have a city of concrete buildings that, during the winter, are being heated and emitting some heat out into the environment which creates an overall warmer local atmosphere than the surrounding area.

I need some snow at Boyce so we can teach my kids to ski without spending 2 grand for the weekend.

The beaver cracker station isn’t emitting pollution, it’s emitting a forcefield dome to protect the city from inclement weather

Do the rivers converging have anything to do with this as well?

It’s snowing in penn hills as we speak. It’s going to turn to rain though

Same. Every day it's "we need 7 volunteers to stay home today and pay us", which I get, I guess, but they had this teed up at like 6PM yesterday so you know they were salivating over it.

Edit: I creeped through your post history. Pretty sure our kids know each other haha. You're basically me.

Based on this image the snow is staying out of cities, maybe it watches fox news and is worried about gang violence.

urban heat island wouldn't really have much impact until the snow is below radar levels anyways. snow might stick less downtown or vary slightly with elevation, but most of the dynamic weather is happening far enough up in the atmosphere to render small changes in what precip looks like at the surface moot.

not really. what most people don't think of is that weather is 3D, rather than a plot of rain and snow on a 2D map. layers of warmer and colder air in the upper atmosphere are far more pertinent to what precip you see at ground level than anything happening on the surface. that's not to say small variations caused by local microclimates don't make a difference in observable weather, rather that they aren't going to change the whole metro area's weather like this dry slot did.

NON-EXPERT OBSERVATION. Back when Doppler radar imagery online was new (1990's) the opposite was true: there was frequently a lot of signal in the town itself, but not outside it [this was when I lived in Texas] Later, signal processing methods appear to have been developed to reduce radar "clutter" in Doppler imagery which arises from the landscape and not the atmosphere. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1460942

So we may be looking at an artifact of "subtracting" baseline noise from the radar return over the city. During those years in Texas, if I really wanted to see what was happening in our city, I had to examine the radar result coming from a different radar station in another city.

For real. I was at 7 springs after Christmas and it was $80 for a night ski pass. They borderline charge as much as like Breckinridge out west which is laughable when you look at the mountains.

Dry slot you say?

Wait, there's no longer snow days for kids? Everyone just does wfh, because the infrastructure is there from the pandemic?

Something under the pillow also?? Maybe that’s the problem!

To many Sheetz and Eat N Park’s grease up the air ?

Is this accurate there was like a foot of snow outside this morning? Can't Seven Springs make snow too?

Now we can say "the whole Pittsburgh area" ahaha

Several reasons:

1. Traditional low pressure systems weaken as they approach the Appalachian Mountains. Pittsburgh is basically the start of a very lengthy mountainous area, hence the scattering of a lot of storms.
2. This one’s obvious, but we are out of the lake effect snow belt. This is not news to anyone except tourists who think we get a lot of snow. BUT these micro lake based systems end along route 80, AND mess with the air pressure of larger storms traveling East-west, or the fast moving “clipper” storms from the North.
3. We’re still not that high up in elevation. We are a mountainous city, but not high up in the Laurel Highlands enough to get a ton of snow squalls to make up for that… often that results in a 10-15 temperature difference between here and the Seven Springs area, which impacts snowfall greatly.
4. We are too far west for Nor’easters. These are this big news-worthy low pressure systems that start in the south and move north up between the Appalachian mountains and Atlantic coast. These are those awful blizzard style storms that take all that moisture from the south and then dump feet of snow along the coast. We’re too far west for that!

Here’s a crude image kind of showing these concepts:

https://i.imgur.com/ofzRVRJ.jpg

don't even go there i would rather Not shovel 10 inches Thank the heavens above to pass

This aged like milk 😂

As a non-child-having individual, I have to say...

WHAT?!

How can they do that?!?!

Yay but I still had to come into work :(

Where do people go to ski? Have been thinking about trying it out with some friends but unsure where a good spot is

I work outside a lot and i check the weather often. I started to record videos of this on my iPad. I have a collection of rain clouds just magically stopping right before my location. Or splitting apart and passing me by. It was seriously like there was a magic weather shield in the Pittsburgh area.

You are buried too deep in Appalachia

And of course it starts snowing bad when I’m already halfway to work lol

Should’ve just told my boss I wanted to work from home today

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My poor husband spent all of last night refreshing the local news sites. We joked about how he didn’t even care this much about snow days when he was actually a kid.

Hello, fellow Howard Stern fan

The point was we were originally predicted to have a couple inches by 6am and woke up at 6am with nothing

Yep. Some places will just have virtual days, a lot will have “asynchronous” learning days where teachers post assignments online for kids to work on that day.

you must not live inside the city 😂 idk why people in Pittsburgh act like Cranberry means Pittsburgh

After years of watching specifically here I can say the hills usually break up alot of the weather. Happens with thunderstorms and snow too. There's also like a 20% chance that the updrafts will make the weather worse as it passed over Allegheny County as well. I don't know what it is with people complaining about the weather here as if it's never not like this. You want warm in January go to Florida you want snow to ski go to Colorado.

Lmfao okay you may have nailed my location by like 2 miles (I'm in AC still) but dammit I was born in Pittsburgh! I have birth rights to it.

Depends on a lot of things, if you’re new to skiing and want slightly less crowds I’d say Hidden Valley. But with smaller resort comes less lifts. So 7 Springs is the best bet but be prepared to spend a lot :/

oof stay safe out there

Did nature just 👌 us?

There is an explanation, but you wouldn’t believe it

Daycare is the biggest bullshit necessary evil.

I pay around 3k a month for my two kids. Here are some of the joys....

1. Kid gets sick- they aren't allowed to go (I wouldn't want them to anyhow). But there's no fee drop... so if my kid stays home 4 days one week, I still pay for all 5.
2. If I go on vacation, I can't pay a holding fee....it's just the standard amount. Meaning if I take a 1 week vacation with my kids, I have to basically throw $700 in the trash. I get nothing from it.
3. If the center has workers call off, they ask for volunteers to stay home....you do not get any money back for this so they basically are asking you to throw away $75-150 (1-2 kids). If nobody volunteers they have a lottery system to pick a loser that gets childcare yanked away from them unwillingly.
4. If staff is sick and unable to come in to a large extent, the room is closed for the day and I have no option but to not take my kids....I do not get reimbursed any money for this.
5. If I am late picking up my child they charge $1 per minute. This isn't too crazy and it's never happened, but ....for all the other money they scalp from you...this shouldn't be needed.

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;_;

Poor little guys

It’s the worst! I think volunteers should get credit amounts of at least half day fee applied to next week charge. Just burning money is aggravating.

We volunteered a TON, but now it’s just too much cost to keep doing.

The storms usually break up/split when they go over the mountains.

We are surrounded by mountains which compress atmospheric moisture, causing the moisture to exit the atmosphere, when it decompresses as it crests the peak of the mountains, there’s less pressure for moisture to exit the atmosphere, reducing precipitation.

This is mostly a positive, and means we tend not to get severe weather systems, and is part of the reason, in combination with our abundant waterways, why this area has built up and been settled over time.

The other part, as illuminated for me today, is that part of this is a radar artifact. The center of the "hole" is actually the radar site out in Moon, and as the precipitation dropped closer to the ground, the hole more or less closed around Moon (with lots of variations based on elevation).

This is because the radar shoots up at an angle, so the further from the site you are, the higher in the atmosphere the returns are happening.

There are still some real snow days - Pittsburgh Public had one in December. No online school, just a day off. I think we had one or two last year also, in addition to some online days. Not sure how exactly they decide which one to do.

This winter has sucked so much, we’ve barely had any snow at all, rainy winters are the worst

Right??? I'm a nanny. The kids were sent home yesterday with all their textbooks in preparation for a zoom day. I was looking forward to a lazy morning not rushing kids out the door. It picked up just in time for me not be able to pull the minivan up the driveway after dropping off the elementary kid.

That makes sense. Like you put it I never really gave the 3d model a thought, especially with the different layers of air currents and hot and cold zones.

I should start a daycare and under cut everyone by making it 2500 a month. And if the kid doesn't show you jst pay 75% of that days fees, 75 cents per minute if late..

Sign me up !

And it’s all melted 😢

So is some of that southern moist air is smashing into the ridges in central PA? Is this why I have to prepare like I'm going on a trek to Siberia to make the 2-hr drive over the mountains to Penn State in the winter?

Well now hold on a second. You haven't heard about MY new daycare that charges $2250 a month, and if the kid doesn't show up you just pay $45% of that days fee, $0.50 for every minute late.

Same. My kid already only goes 3 days and being that we work from home, we've volunteered several times. I try not to be mad at them though. Not having staff blows and those teachers are paid only a fraction of what they deserve.

Started snowing finally got my kid dressed to go out in it with him and it turned to ice. I'm so sad.

yup

It was pretty dry

All cities get this I think. Atlanta was like this when I lived there. Same with SF. Boston got weather though but it’s a meteorological oddity being at the confluence of 3 jet streams.

But you haven’t heard of my day care yet! It’s completely free!! I just get to use your kids for free labor on my farm. Bring your own band aids.

The valley is warmer than the mountain.

Isn't this kind of good though?

You aren't going to be skiing in the city or surrounding suburbs anyways. This way you would get "cleaner" roads to drive on your way to wherever you're skiing

$80 for a lift ticket is pretty crazy. Even. Even night passes are $60. I’d rather save up and go to Breck

not called off work though and it’s not a weekend

and id much rather drive in fluffy snow than wintry mix ice

Pretty much, yeah!

I’ve considered approaching one of the teachers and offering under the table money to be our personal sitter lol. They honestly should be paid great for the amount the center charges and how wonderful many of them are.

I’m sure there’s far more overhead costs I’m not aware of….but I also know there is a successful daycare closer to me that only would cost 2k a month for both kids…. The waiting list is stupid king though. I should be able to get my son in the toddler class around the time he’s in 7th grade

The city is home to some of the largest global corporate headquarters.. as well as cmu which is renowned globally as a cutting edge weapons lab lmao

Yeah. My kid will be going to Kindergarten before too long here so I'm not willing to rock the boat or change anything. But yeah, I'm excited for "free" childcare, despite my angst about him getting older.

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Ahhhhhh I see I see

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It's snowy in Greensburg. I'll gladly trade it for some sunshine. Cold sucks!

Yep and its annoying af.

Been snowing in Beaver all morning.

/s

Yes we got a beautiful snowfall this AM, although I’m just over the border south in Warsh Co

I still say its beltzhoover..

Spoons!

I've only seen this in St Louis. It happens consistently over there

The mountain gods are unhappy that you keep coming up here and littering. If I came to Pittsburgh and littered you'd shit a brick.

Don't move to Oregon like I did then.

What’s funny is I’m moving to Phoenix tomorrow, a place that never gets snow, except in the mountains

And it's already melting now. This sub loves to act like we have brutal winters, but it's hardly anything at all.

That's what she said.

Enjoy living in an oven! You get some pretty kickass Mexican food as a trade off though.

I’ve been living off and on in the desert in SoCal so I’m pretty use to the stupid heat, but the Mexican food is a huge reason for the move, although I will definitely miss Pittsburgh a ton

Mother nature’s way of playing this game.👌. Yeah you looked.

Joe is no longer around to say it would. He lived in Moon Twp BTW.

Joe is no longer around to say it would.

Don't have the science but it has to do with us being in a valley. Sometimes it air is warmer so bad weather doesn't hit is as bad but if we're cooler it can hold it longer because it would be contained in the valley. Someone smarter than me can do the actual scientific explanation.lol

*averse

Once they set up remote learning, they just flip a switch and learn from home. Best result for the kiddos would be a 2 hour delay. In person learning, but the streets need to be cleared and teachers be able to arrive.

Move to new york

This is true, also part of it is we're just at a much lower elevation than many of our surrounding areas. I've driven from a foot of snow in the hills around Somerset back to no snow here before.

Somerset mountain be huge though! Pretty much goes along with this too, it's insane when I travel to da Burgh and the big weather difference on each side of that tunnel, I come from Bedford on a half decent regularity to visit friends and the night life! But it always amazes me, I remember the one Halloween it was in the 60s here but in the 40s there thankfully for me because I was in a full care bear suit... it helped keep me cool

We are also below the snow belt , which stops right around I-80, so there areas north get much more snow, often from lake effect. This partially explains it.

This is the only time you’ll ever hear Pittsburghers complaining about NOT enough precipitation.

To the guy who asked what part of Pittsburgh doesn’t get snow, here’s your answer.

I moved from Oregon to Pittsburgh this fall! I was hoping for more snow, but I’ll still take this winter so far over Oregon winter.

What neighborhood

Oh my god, now we’re all living in neighborhoods that get no snow!

Check out my premium prices

Reminded me of this

Snow treats us like concerts.

Wow! From an outsiders perspective, this seems asinine. So if you’re kid is sick and can’t go to daycare, you’re still obligated to pay…but if one of their teachers is sick and can’t accommodate, you could be chosen to keep your child at home while still paying ?! Are all the daycares like this ?

Thats my very rough understanding of it lol

Some daycares give you a handful of sick days, where they won’t charge if you can’t come…but it’s usually limited to a few days.

The biggest issue is you can’t really shop around as a parent. I had to call over 24 daycares in the area to get one without a 1-1.5 year waiting list. It’s also a 25 min drive for us which sucks…. But it’s what was a available.

Pittsburgh is actually in a valley in the mountains. As such, the air rises over the mountains and falls into the valley. This air exchange has a tendency to break weather systems up. There is a rise and fall effect.

I had this when I lived in Tempe, AZ (where Arizona State is). Literally every time a nice band of storms or rain was forecasted to move over my neighbor the system either barely misses my neighbor or the system fucking dies before reaching me.

I had this when I lived in Tempe, AZ (where Arizona State is). Literally, every time a nice band of storms or rain was forecasted to move over my neighbor, the system either barely missed my neighbor or the system fucking dies before reaching me.

I really hope you like it there! I really miss Pittsburgh. Don't worry, the snow will come at some point, just maybe not this year. Ask anybody about snowmageddon in 2010.

I can explain the 2.5 inches by the airport and nothing in the city Sunday evening. With the system on Sunday evening, there was a band of moderate snow that was able to accumulate 1 to 2 inches in areas of far western Allegheny County and to the west of that because it basically held stationary over the same areas. By the time the banding finally shifted east towards the city around midnight, the best dynamics were over, so what snow did fall here had a much harder time accumulating, because it wasn't as heavy and the temps were marginal.

I’m loving it so far! I was actually living in Michigan’s upper peninsula during snowmageddon, in a small but hilly town. Hope you are enjoying Oregon!

Wait, so you guys pay for daycare and they still ask volunteers to work for them? Despite being paid? A lot I might add…I fail to see how this is acceptable.

I don’t have kids so I may be ignorant to the details behind it all. I’d be pissed if they asked me to work for free despite my paying them for a service. 🤔

Just saw the post below, I see it is in fact absolute BS lol

Well, I don’t think Pittsburgh skiers don’t actually ski IN Pittsburgh and I think most of the ski areas are under the blue, so I’d say you can still hit the slopes.

No, not volunteers to work. They're asking families to volunteer to not send their children that day to maintain a legal or practical student to teacher ratio. These kids then stay home, but because of how these places operate and need to pay their teachers and other personnel, you get no discount or anything. You'd just eat the cost.

Ahhhh that makes way more sense. Hmm still frustrating none the less

Yeah but it's hard to blame anyone. What should happen is free early childhood education for families subsidized by the government.

I wanted a snow day :(

aaand then it unaged lol, it's 40 degrees and raining with no snow left before 4pm

I knew you were south hills before I even saw “Dormont”. I’m USC/Bridgeville area, and as an owner of a thunder-adverse dog, I keep my eye on the sky. I can confirm a lot of storms split right before they get to us. I have even seen a storm split apart and reform on the other side of us.

ballsonthewall telling us about the dry slot?

Ah! This is why my daughter insisted that I check my email for anything about a school delay this morning. They must have said at her school yesterday that that was likely. I had been wondering why she thought there might be a delay.

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So Pittsburgh public does the first 2 snow days are completely off. No online work. Once we hit the 3rd day then it would be online.

OMG that dude that was moving from Florida was actually asking a valid question all along!

I am a wizard and my bubble will always stand as long as I live!!

I grew up in Washington County and my sister and I always asked this in high school because it seemed like everyone got delays and cancellations but us. I feel like we got a lot more snow though back in the 80s and 90s when I was a kid than we do now.

God is just getting back at Nutting

Makes sense, thanks.

Cuz fuck you thats why

Hey!!!! let's not bring Ben Shapiros wife into this

Bro what fuck this ain't my little brother's game Fortnite, boy what hell.

Higher powers are preventing natural snowfall on the ski resorts owned/operated by the Nutting family as retribution of the systemic neglect of treating the Pirates as a sports teams and not a business entity

Mother nature just got us all tbh... Made ya

I don't know about everyone else, but I'm happy to not have had to use my snow shovel yet this winter. Guess I'm getting old.

This!!! I have been saying this for years!!!

Yes! I call it the "Pittsburgh Bubble"!

The album of radar videos in my phone is called "anti rain shield"

Nutting effect

Come on up to Buffalo, we have more than enough to share!