Pittsburgh area could soon see its first accumulating snow of the season. Here's how much to expect.
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The Pittsburgh area could soon see if its first accumulating snow of the season in the coming days.
Any Alert Days Ahead? Thursday is a First Alert Weather Day due to accumulating snow chance potentially impacting the morning commute as road crews are out.
Aware: This is the coldest 1st two days of December (average temp 27.5°) in over 20 years with the last time we saw temps this cold happening in 2002 (26.5°).
Let it snow! Accumulating snow is heading our way as we will be in the base of an upper low and a backdoor cold front dropping in Wednesday night into Thursday morning. Snow totals region-wide will be in the 1-3 range, but there will be places that see significantly more. Let's focus on those places, shall we?
Let's start off with where a winter storm watch has now been issued. When it comes to just snow like we are expecting with this next event, a storm watch is issued when snow totals could hit 6 inches. That's a decent amount of snow and will obviously slow things down a lot for folks traveling. Officially the watch from the Local National Weather Service office says folks in the winter weather watch should expect between 3" - 9" of snow to fall. Communities like Clarion, Venango, and Mercer will likely be in the 4" - 6" range on average with isolated reports that will be even higher than that. A winter storm watch is normally issued when the event is still more than 24 hours out and less than 48 hours out. That changes over to a winter storm warning for communities that meet the criteria of 6" of snow or at times a mix of snow and ice.
Interestingly, the Laurel Highlands and Ridges are not included under a winter storm watch at this time. Model data continues to show widespread snow totals for these communities less than for places north of I-80 but some of the isolated reports on westward-facing slopes of the Laurels could be some of the highest we will see.
The good news for Thursday morning commuters is that the heaviest snow will fall from around 10 p.m. on Wednesday through 3 a.m. on Thursday. There will be scattered snow showers still around through at least sunrise but crews should have a handle on snow-covered roads well before that. Thursday will be cold and blustery with temperatures in the 20s all day long. It will be windy as well with gusty winds coming in out of the northwest.
Back to today, highs will hit the mid-30s with morning temps dipping down to the mid to low 20s again. Wind chills are in the teens in most places. I have noon temperatures near 32.
While we won't see start-to-finish sunny skies, there will be long stretches today with sunny weather in place with an hour here or there that will see mostly cloudy skies.
Lake Effect Snow Warnings end at 7 p.m. tonight for communities along the banks of Lake Erie as we should see a wind out of the southwest tonight into Wednesday.
This should push highs up to near 40 for Wednesday's high.
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