Pittsburgh to see snow showers on Wednesday, cold weather ends the week
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - Northwest flow aloft in the atmosphere continues to transport cold air into our region from Canada. This colder air flowing in aloft combined with a weak disturbance aloft in the atmosphere will make widespread areas of snow showers and snow squalls active across our entire region through the remainder of today and tonight.
WEATHER LINKS:
Current Conditions | School Closings & Delays | Submit Your Weather Photos
A Winter Weather Advisory is in effect for Venango and Forest counties and the Laurel Highlands into Northern West Virginia until noon Thursday. Models are in pretty decent agreement that a band of lake effect snow will produce a couple of inches along and north of I-80 with totals reaching 1-3".
A few locally higher amounts are possible as well. Another concentrated area of snow will likely affect areas south to southwest of Pittsburgh and into the Laurel Highlands and Ridges. A general 1-3" is expected here with locally higher amounts, especially in the highest peaks of the Laurel Highlands and Ridges.
Snow showers will diminish between midnight and sunrise on Thursday as a ridge of high pressure settles into the region. Skies will remain cloudy most of the day tomorrow, with some breaks in the clouds during the afternoon and evening hours. Skies will clear out and winds will become light under the high pressure by Friday morning allowing temperatures to drop into the single digits with wind chills near zero.
While this is certainly not comfortable to be outside in, this is not record-breaking cold and wind chills will not be dangerous to promote frostbite within a short time.
Friday morning will begin with mostly sunny skies, then clouds will increase ahead of another storm system that will arrive Friday into Friday night.
This system is in two parts—a northern stream wave of low pressure coming out of Canada/Northern US and a southern stream wave of low pressure coming out of the Southern US.
This will produce a widespread area of moderate snow that will impact all of Western Pennsylvania and Northern West Virginia. The snow will begin around or after sunset Saturday and last into the mid-morning hours. Lingering snow showers will continue into the afternoon hours of Saturday with clearing skies Saturday night into Sunday.
Early indications are that a few to several inches of snow will occur with this system. A snowfall forecast map will come out as we get closer to the event and when we're able to nail down where any heavy bands may occur.
Stay up to date with the KDKA Mobile App – which you can download here!