Winters in Pitt PA, what are they like? (Pittsburgh, Carnegie: rated, metro)

[vwscottie]

I just moved down from Erie myself in October of 2006, so this is my second winter, if you can even call it that.

[Katiana]

Temperature-wise, Pittsburgh is very much like Denver: up, down, up, down all winter. January thaws, the whole bit.

Much grayer, though. Don't remember much snow in March, from my formative years. Don't remember much snow at all, come to think of it, a few inches at a time usually. Lots of rain in the winter, too.

[claremarie]

Grey, definitely. Many native Pittsburghers will deny this, but statistics confirm it, and anyone who's moved away from Pittsburgh will notice it immediately.
The snow is not so bad, and there is not nearly so much ice in Pittsburgh as in places like the DC area, where we live now.
Plus people in Pittsburgh generally have the sense to slow down when driving in bad weather. And, when I was growing up, there were big boxes of road salt on the side of the road at particularly steep or otherwise dangerous spots. Are those still around?

[BVH]

Originally Posted by claremarie

Grey, definitely. Many native Pittsburghers will deny this, but statistics confirm it, and anyone who's moved away from Pittsburgh will notice it immediately.
The snow is not so bad, and there is not nearly so much ice in Pittsburgh as in places like the DC area, where we live now.
Plus people in Pittsburgh generally have the sense to slow down when driving in bad weather. And, when I was growing up, there were big boxes of road salt on the side of the road at particularly steep or otherwise dangerous spots. Are those still around?

I agree, it is definately gray here. My partner has even commented several times on never needing sunglasses, lol.

Also, the rate of snowfall here seems to have dramatically decreased since I was a child growing up. We could count on snow solidly from October to March. Now, we're lucky to have 4 or 5 days of actual cold temperatures at a time. It definately plays hell with your sinuses.

[mz-ellie]

I moved here from Philly after I graduated from Drexel, back in 1976, so I've been here for a great number of winters and I'm pretty familiar with the winters back east also.

It can be real tough here in the winters. Much tougher than Philly or NYC, yet nothing like "lake effect" areas.

We've had occasional winters that produced so much snow that they loaded the stuff up in box cars and sent it south to melt -- they had to use "high-lifters" eventually to try to get some clear space in parking lots (the snow piles in Monroeville Mall were still melting in July!). We've also had winters were sooooo cold that they could not use salt on the roads from December through March, so even major roads like Mosside Blvd and Wm Penn Highway in Monroeville were covered with packed snow throughout that period. We had an early Novemeber snowstorm in 1980 that stranded motorist all through the area -- even school kids didn't get home till after 8pm. I had a full-sized Jimmy and was stuck cause everybody else was stuck on the roads and hillsides and had to wait for AAA to come tow them out. And we had one snow storm at the end of March that I believe dropped 23 inches of snow overnight!

What I found out in Pittsburgh is that it really doesn't shut down long for snow. We can get 8-10 inches and people just shrug and get moving!

It is a 'burgh tradition that when the weather forecast is for a big snow, everybody runs out to Giant Eagle to buy milk, bread and toilet paper!

[raynist]

Originally Posted by mz-ellie

I moved here from Philly after I graduated from Drexel, back in 1976, so I've been here for a great number of winters and I'm pretty familiar with the winters back east also.

It can be real tough here in the winters. Much tougher than Philly or NYC, yet nothing like "lake effect" areas.

We've had occasional winters that produced so much snow that they loaded the stuff up in box cars and sent it south to melt -- they had to use "high-lifters" eventually to try to get some clear space in parking lots (the snow piles in Monroeville Mall were still melting in July!). We've also had winters were sooooo cold that they could not use salt on the roads from December through March, so even major roads like Mosside Blvd and Wm Penn Highway in Monroeville were covered with packed snow throughout that period. We had an early Novemeber snowstorm in 1980 that stranded motorist all through the area -- even school kids didn't get home till after 8pm. I had a full-sized Jimmy and was stuck cause everybody else was stuck on the roads and hillsides and had to wait for AAA to come tow them out. And we had one snow storm at the end of March that I believe dropped 23 inches of snow overnight!

What I found out in Pittsburgh is that it really doesn't shut down long for snow. We can get 8-10 inches and people just shrug and get moving!

It is a 'burgh tradition that when the weather forecast is for a big snow, everybody runs out to Giant Eagle to buy milk, bread and toilet paper!

Those big events you are citing happened long ago. Our winters have really changed over the last 15 years. Getting a foot of snow was no big deal when I was growing up as were below zero temps. Both are very rare now. Philly and NYC seem to get a Nor'easter at least once a year, we might get 3-4 inches from those while the eastern part of the state measures the snowfall by the foot.

--Ray

[Katiana]

I remember very few winters with a lot of snow, and I grew up in Pittsburgh in the 50s and 60s. I can remember my parents talking about a big snowstorm in the winter of 1949 (I think). It rarely froze hard enough to go ice skating on a lake or a pond.

I don't think Pittsburgh gets many 8-10" snowfalls.

[guylocke]

I don't think Pittsburgh gets many 8-10" snowfalls.

Woah, last time we had one of those was 15 years ago.

[belowthelights]

You really can't generalize with winters here. Sometimes it will be really damn cold and sometimes it will be 60 degrees (example: yesterday).

I really don't think we get consistent snowfall. We sometimes have huge storms or snow pretty much every day for a couple weeks and sometimes you won't see snow for a month and a half.

But as people have said, the roads are generally plowed and salted well.

[wordzgirl]

Long, gray, cold, cloudy, more gray, some snow, midwinter melt, gray, huge snow mid-March, more clouds, cold, gray.