If you are enjoying the damp, dank start to spring then get ready (Pittsburgh: areas, cities)

[Craziaskowboi]

Originally Posted by mike02

HowStuffWorks "Maps of United States Annual Sunshine"
Scroll down and click on U.S. Annual sunshine map and it will load. Notice the gray color band that includes all cities in the same range as Pgh. There's other maps you can search for different months and seasons. Just google it.

Funny. Wasn't somebody denying the effect of orographic lift earlier? It's interesting how the cloudiest area in the eastern United States runs right down the spine of the Appalachian Mountains. Even western Virginia, western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee are in the same zone as Pittsburgh. Hell, you can even see where the Ozark Mountains are in Arkansas; they're the two light gray blobs in the northern and western part of the state that are entirely surrounded by yellow.

Or were they doubting the effect of the Great Lakes? In that case, everything located southeast of every Great Lake (with the partial exception of Lake Michigan) is located in the same zone as Pittsburgh. Hell, why do you think they call it lake-effect snow? It's because the moisture coming off the lakes condenses into clouds and snow. There have even been lake-effect thunderstorms before.

Pittsburgh is negligibly cloudier than other nearby areas in the spring, summer and fall because of the combination of orographic lift and moisture in the air mass from either the Great Lakes or the Gulf of Mexico, depending on whether the prevailing winds are from the northwest or the southwest.

[Aqua Teen Carl]

Originally Posted by Gnutella

Hey, I can play that game too! I've been to 34 different states in my lifetime, as well as international cities like Toronto, Montreal, Taipei, Hong Kong and Ho Chi Minh City! And you know what? I still don't see what the big ****in' deal is about the weather in Pittsburgh!

I honestly looked for a source online and can't find it, but I remember hearing on one of the cable news channels a few years ago that Pittsburgh had both the lowest rate of severe weather-related insurance claims and damages per capita of all United States metropolitan areas with 1,000,000+ population.

Cool story bro.

[Craziaskowboi]

Originally Posted by Aqua Teen Carl

Cool story bro.

I know. That's what I said when I found out that you've traveled different places too.

[SammyKhalifa]

One thing I'm pretty sure ANYONE can agree with is that sunniness 45% of the time is actually sounding pretty good about right now.

[Aqua Teen Carl]

Originally Posted by Gnutella

I know. That's what I said when I found out that you've traveled different places too.

Yeah, I was responding to a different poster. Nice try though brah.

[SammyKhalifa]

Originally Posted by Aqua Teen Carl

Yeah, I was responding to a different poster. Nice try though brah.

Um, you quoted Gnutella. You were responding to him/her.

[Aqua Teen Carl]

Originally Posted by SammyKhalifa

Um, you quoted Gnutella. You were responding to him/her.

I was referring to the point about traveling which was in response to mike02. THIS IS ALL SO CONFUSING

[BrianTH]

Not to add more confusion, but I believe it was Fiddlehead who once posted some North American maps of solar radiation received at different parts of the year, and they were a little bit different still. Some possible reasons for the variation include different time periods and different things being measured (e.g., different thicknesses of cloud will let in different amounts of solar radiation, and I suspect latitude might make a noticeable difference as well).

I think the general lesson from all this is that we should be careful about overreading the significance of small differences in these statistics.

[gg]

I wish I knew more about edible mushrooms. Seems mushrooms love this wet weather. I have them growing in my East garden under some Rhododendrons. They look good, but I don't have a clue if they are edible. Don't think I will give it a go.

[mike02]

Originally Posted by Gnutella

Funny. Wasn't somebody denying the effect of orographic lift earlier? It's interesting how the cloudiest area in the eastern United States runs right down the spine of the Appalachian Mountains. Even western Virginia, western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee are in the same zone as Pittsburgh. Hell, you can even see where the Ozark Mountains are in Arkansas; they're the two light gray blobs in the northern and western part of the state that are entirely surrounded by yellow.

Or were they doubting the effect of the Great Lakes? In that case, everything located southeast of every Great Lake (with the partial exception of Lake Michigan) is located in the same zone as Pittsburgh. Hell, why do you think they call it lake-effect snow? It's because the moisture coming off the lakes condenses into clouds and snow. There have even been lake-effect thunderstorms before.

Pittsburgh is negligibly cloudier than other nearby areas in the spring, summer and fall because of the combination of orographic lift and moisture in the air mass from either the Great Lakes or the Gulf of Mexico, depending on whether the prevailing winds are from the northwest or the southwest.

Cleveland is located within the gray bland, yet supposedly receives more sunshine during the summer. So does Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, Scranton, and maybe Columbus, OH. They all receive more sunshine than Pittsburgh during the spring, summer, and fall. And, Columbus receives less sunshine than Cleveland during the summer but more sunshine during the winter. Here's a comparison between Allentown, Scranton, and Pittsburgh, all within the Appalachians. The Appalachians run through upstate NY as well, so why more summertime sunshine there? There's odd-ball differences and similarities that is difficult to explain solely on the Appalachians.

CITY YEARS J F M A M J J A S O N D ANNUAL
ALLENTOWN, PA 12 43 48 53 46 53 62 57 61 58 57 49 45 53
AVOCA, PA 41 41 47 50 53 57 61 62 61 55 52 36 34 51
PITTSBURGH, PA 49 32 36 43 46 50 55 57 56 55 51 36 28 45

*Allentown's sunshine goes up in down during the spring and summer. That's
weird. Why is that? It matches Pittsburgh's in April and July. Scranton and
Pittsburgh receive the same in September and November, and close in October.
As you can see, there appears to be some difference in the wintertime, which
makes sense because of the Great Lakes. A better comparison with more accuracy
would be data collected from the same length of time. You have 12 years for
Allentown, 41 for Scranton, and 49 for Pittsburgh. Oh wait, that brings me to
my next point: Allentown and Scranton have small airports compared to Pittsburgh.
Why do I say that? A study was done claiming smaller airports are more
liberal on reporting cloud conditions, while larger ones are more
conservative. The report is called: cloud-cover reporting bias
http://www.asrc.cestm.albany.edu/per...%20bias-00.pdf

Now explain your theory for that. All of those cities, except for Cleveland and Columbus, are within the Appalachian Mtn. range and receive more sunshine than Pittsburgh during the warmer months. It can't just be the effect of the Appalachians. I won't deny it has some effect but I doubt it makes Pittsburgh somehow cloudier than other cities within that same range. I was always interested in how the days of the steel mills and black smoke that covered Pgh's skies affected visibility and sunshine levels. On a subjective note, I lived in northeastern PA and southeastern PA and notice absolutely no difference in sunshine between there and southwestern PA. Only between southeastern and southwestern PA in the winter.

CONCLUSION: It really is nit-picking when you use the data solely to prove these places are all sunnier. Depends. So many variables, etc. There's truth in the data, but not necessarily concrete. It gives somewhat of a very broad, general picture. Not really precise. Winters are pretty obvious compared to Philly. But summer isn't. Even if I'm completely wrong, would anyone even notice the difference? All I'm looking for is a fair, equal comparison. Essentially, it's nit-picking which is exactly what some posters do on here constantly. I see no proof of the Appalachians affecting Pgh more so than other cities. If you have source, NOT WIKIPEDIA, that can back that claim up, then post it. If you can't, so you can only say "maybe" not definitely. Just like I said about the steel mills. "Maybe" it had an effect, but it's not definite unless I found a reliable source to back it up.