https://www.reddit.com/r/pittsburgh/comments/10h17qr/pgh_wx_nerds_whats_the_chances_we_get_a_winter/j55tzyi/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3

I was right. Sweet sweet downvotes.

Edit: MAYBE NOT!

Good job.

Same here in Squirrel Hill at 7:26; i guess this is one of the neighborhoods that doesn’t get snow.

Local news station weather people don't have to be correct in their forecasts, they will still have a job tomorrow no matter how bad they miss the forecast. If you want real forecasts you need to find someone who is an independent weather person who gets paid for their service. Their livelihoods depend on having accurate forecasts and if they are bad at it they won't have customers.

NWS is a much better source for weather. They're more willing to adjust as new data comes in. Forecasting winter storms is incredibly difficult and more about preparedness for a variety of outcomes than nailing down a single specific forecast.

Yeah I’m not sure why you were downvoted for that. I’ve lived here 28 years and although there are anomalies (I see you 2010), the area has gotten noticeably less snow every year. Also later first snow falls, too.

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The average snowfall for a season here is 45 inches. We just had 55 inches of snow in the winter of 2020-21 and 45 inches of snow last winter, so that's just not true.

Always remember and don't ever forget: Local news's job is to get you to watch. That's it. The goal is ratings and revenue. The more eyeballs and clicks, the more they can charge for ads. The advertisers are their customers, not the viewers. It's been that way since the late 70s when consultants told station owners that news could be a big profit center.

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Now that is an accurate forecast.

Going back more than three years tells a different story…https://www.weather.gov/media/pbz/records/hissnow.pdf

Got two inches at my house the last hour so

Squirrel Hill is covered as of 8:15am.

Godspeed my friend lol.

It really doesn't. That link you provided shows plenty of winters under 30 inches for a season throughout the years. The average is 44 inches so that means half of winters should have more than that, and about half of them should have less of that.

I preach the virtues of weather.gov to anyone who will listen. All weather, no bullshit. No obnoxious "reality" content, no garbage ads, no clickbait, no auto playing video... It's a more pleasant experience than certain other weather sites even with ad blockers enabled.

the social media accounts for NWS Pittsburgh are great too!

and the dirty little secret is that a lot of news stations get their weather directly from NWS.

unfortunately there's been a movement within a certain political party to privatize NWS data. It would be another cash grab -- socialize the costs, privatize the profits. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/who-benefits-from-the-privatization-of-weather-data

I love their site too, even though they also got today wrong

Climate change may not mean less snow for us. We could get bigger storms, including bigger snow storms. The jet stream could become more unstable and provide us with more arctic blasts.

While temps globally are going up, it means that weather itself becomes more unstable.

That's what she said.

I’ll have to look through the data. My observed history tells me different, but perhaps that’s my own bias showing!

People bitch about anything. Their job is to inform. If they call for snow and it doesn't you bitch, if it snows and they didn't mention it you bitch. Don't listen then and go by your own judgement

You're absolutely right.

How many years would you go back?

I'm in Lincoln Place and its sure wintry enough here. Looks like a few inches and still coming down.

How about you zip it and go back to bed.

I really don't understand why folks don't just go straight to NWS for weather. Twitter, their website, all of it. I love NWS. Plenty of information for both the lay (me) person and the more weather interested folks!

Exactly. Local news is generally garbage and that has nothing to do with political bias or journalistic effort and everything to do with profitability. Per screen-minute, weather is probably the cheapest to create and generates the most revenue. Get you all riled up, get you to share, get you to engage with their content, that's the aim.

If it was about real journalism the investigative reporting would happen year round and not just during sweeps months, but that's when they have to invest to see the highest return on their rate cards.

And there’s little excitement in predicting 30-40 degrees and grey for 5 months a year.

it’s starting to really stick here in east lib

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