Pittsburgh Weather: Sunny conditions with blue skies
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- It's going to be a sunny day with blue skies across Western Pennsylvania.
Today: Pleasant weather continues with highs back in the mid-70s
Any Alert Days Ahead? Nope
Aware: Powerful cold front rolls through on Wednesday. Right now data is keeping us dry.
Not much change is going on in the atmosphere this week.
Over the next week, I have most people completely dry. The best chances for rain comes on Wednesday (I haven't seen any data showing rain for our area) and Sunday (a wonky tropical low brings rain chance). There's also a small chance for a passing shower east of the Laurel Highlands today due to a passing shower from the heating of the day.
This isolated rain chance returns on Tuesday with both sides of the Laurels having a chance to see rain.
When it comes to today's forecast, expect plenty of sun with highs well into the 70's.
Yesterday we hit 72 degrees for the high.
It was the number I forecasted on Sunday (I also had us at 72 all week long). Highs today will be warmer than that.
I have Pittsburgh hitting 76 for the high.
There is that tiny chance for a passing shower east of the Laurels today too.
It does look like haze from wildfires to the west is back today.
The one thing that I have seen no mention of just yet is our air quality with this powerful ridge of high pressure passing by. The ridge means sinking air is occurring. This effectively 'caps' particulates from some factories and doesn't allow them to escape the surface and scatter in the atmosphere.
This is when we get an Air Quality Alert. What I just said makes it seem fairly easy to get on and issue one.
The actual process is quite involved though involving someone taking and sending in air quality readings here locally. Then a person in Harrisburg has to look at the data and decide to issue an alert. He then sends that decision to the National Weather Service offices. This is the process for me to be able to show you the impacted area on my weather graphics.
The final step isn't needed for me just to mention the alert.
Basically what I am trying to say right now is that I expect that we are somewhere in the process of getting an alert issued for today or tomorrow. Conditions are there for air quality concerns.
The best news is that factories are 'clean' enough that the entire process I just described has already happened and no issues were found. We will see.
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