Pittsburgh Sunshine (Philadelphia, York, Springfield: tornadoes, earthquakes, transit)

[bradjl2009]

Snowfall Stats
Here is the amount of snow for the last few winters from wunderground.com
Pittsburgh Philly
2003-04 54.2 17.3
2004-05 49.5 30.4
2005-06 32.2 19.5
2006-07 35.7 13.4
2007-08 41.2 6.3
2008-09 41.0 22.8
2009-2010 77.4 78.7
Avg (2003-10) 47.3 26.9

As you can see there is a big difference with snowfall with less than 20 inches in a year being common in Philly and with less than 40 inches in Pittsburgh in a bad year for snowfall. I find it interesting the Pittsburgh almost got as much snow this winter as Philly considering they had several major snows compared to our one megastorm and a few other moderate ones. The lake effect helps us a lot.

[airwave09]

Originally Posted by Fred Williamson

Just as a point of reference, Pittsburgh had 203 cloudy days last year:

America’s Unhappiest Cities: Pittsburgh, Pa. - BusinessWeek

Seattle had 201:

America’s Unhappiest Cities: Seattle, Wash. - BusinessWeek

So yes, we do have more cloudy days than Seattle.

Also since this is my first post, I can't really post links so that's why they looked jacked up.

The fact that there were more last year means nothing. It was just one year.

[Aqua Teen Carl]

Originally Posted by airwave09

The fact that there were more last year means nothing. It was just one year.

Well the original poster's question was regarding the amount of sunshine we get here in Pittsburgh and how it compares to Seattle. That goes to show that we can have even worse weather than Seattle.

[Mugatu]

I've never been to Seattle, but I'm curious. Does Seattle have dreary summers? Do they get their cloudy days averaged out over the whole year, or is there a cloudy season, like we have here in winter. It seems our cloudiness mostly comes in one huge dose from Nov-March. But if you survive that, you're treated to a really nice spring and summer here, with lots of sunny days, like the weather this week.

[Fiddlehead]

Originally Posted by Mugatu

I've never been to Seattle, but I'm curious. Does Seattle have dreary summers? Do they get their cloudy days averaged out over the whole year, or is there a cloudy season, like we have here in winter. It seems our cloudiness mostly comes in one huge dose from Nov-March. But if you survive that, you're treated to a really nice spring and summer here, with lots of sunny days, like the weather this week.

First off, the stats suggest that Seattle averages about 225 cloudy days per year as opposed to Pittsburgh with about 204. Every place north and west of Eugene, Oregon has more cloudy days than Pittsburgh. Portland has 222, Olympia has 228, and even Missoula, MT comes in at 207. The coast of Oregon and Washington are up to 230-240 cloudy days and these number rise up into Alaska with 280-300 cloudy days.

Check it out:
Local Climate Data Summaries

So the Pacific Northwest wins for clouds. As for Seattle, it does not rain too much in the midsummer, but it can rain from October to July 4th, and then have marine stratus clouds during July August. So winters and springs are probably considerably cloudier than Pittsburgh. This year has been brutal even where I live in southern Oregon. We have been having cold rain and low snows nearly continuously for weeks, and even some frost last week. Out here, we usually say the summer starts on July 4th, and you can usually keep the shorts in the closet until then. Down where I live in S. Oregon, the summers (late June to mid September) are hot and dry, and the shoulder seasons (mid May to June and September to early October) are pretty darn nice too. Up near Seattle the shoulder seasons can be pretty wet, cool, and cloudy. So summer comes late and is lovely but fleeting up that way, but it does probably have less rain than the Burgh during that season.

[BMH47]

Originally Posted by chicknpotpie

Is it true that pittsburgh weather is gloomy? The reason I didn't want to move to seattle is the reputed lack of sunshine. I really like sunshine. Can anyone describe how bad it is in pittsburgh?

I lived in Pittsburgh all of my adult life till three years ago. I really feel that it is all relative. The high that you get when the sun does shine is way better than the feeling you get say in Fla. where it is sunny most of the time..... It actually does shine more than you would think based on the responses to your post.

[Urban_HillBilly]

Originally Posted by BMH47

I lived in Pittsburgh all of my adult life till three years ago. I really feel that it is all relative. The high that you get when the sun does shine is way better than the feeling you get say in Fla. where it is sunny most of the time..... It actually does shine more than you would think based on the responses to your post.

I agree. There were weeks in May when they started out crappy and grey, and then 3 or 4 nice days afterwards that made them much more worthwhile.

[MorphioMacabre]

Mugatu - Seattle actually is often quite sunny in summer actually. They get a lot of days free of clouds with electric blue skies. A lot of people do not realize this.

When I visited Seattle in summer of last year, they were having an unusually hot summer. However, according to the friend I was visiting, and many locals, it is usually that sunny every summer, just not hot at all. Their average highs in July are generally upper 60s to mid 70s. When I went it was near 100. Though I will note they have very dry summer daytime weather, which Pittsburgh is rather humid. Seattle's summers are far, far more comfortable (for someone like me who doesn't like heat) than Pittsburgh - and yet their winters, while cloudy, are nice temperature wise...and Pittsburgh is extremely cloudy in winter too as we all know.

I love cool, misty weather. Which means I get a lot of what I enjoy here in Pittsburgh in early winter and spring through early summer. I enjoy it very much, the full seasons, the lust, moist humid continental climate. (Yes, I know it is officially on the very border of Humid Sub-Tropical, but some climatologists want to change the parameters for the classifications, as Pittsburgh obviously doesn't belong in any sort of "tropical" classification. Somewhere like NYC I can see being on the northernmost part of the Humid Sub-Tropical).

I love Pittsburgh. And all my family is in the East, so I'm not moving anytime soon. But I adore Seattle's climate. That is actually my ideal...Seattle WA or Vancouver BC. *Sigh* Maybe one day...

[MorphioMacabre]

Regarding the sunshine levels in Pittsburgh. The sun is shining today, it has shone quite a bit since March this year. As people have noted, a lot of partly cloudy and mostly cloudy days, which have plenty of sun shine, are counted as "cloudy."

However, I am not disputing that Pittsburgh is cloudier than a lot of the US. I have a friend in Reading, and I would check his weather forecast after mine quite often this winter. I was amazed at how much more sunny it was there. It also tended to be 3-10 degrees warmer. The difference in cloud cover was striking. I would look at our 10 day forecast throughout which we would have say 9 cloudy/snowy/rainy days and 1 mostly cloudy one...and he would be experiencing 5 sunny days and 3 snowy/rainy, 2 party cloudy...etc. That's when I realized how true it is that Pittsburgh winters are exceptionally cloudy. Though I know there are other cities affected by the Great Lakes that are just as cloudy.

NYC also gets a lot of sunny days in winter. I admit it would be nice to have cold, sunny days more often than we get them. I like, though, that the rest of the year has a good amount of sunshine (at least from my perspective) and yet it is never relentless sunny. And really from May-November, as others have said, I've never noticed it being relentless cloudy. It's only oppressively "gloomy" from late November/early December through sometime in March or April.

I will also note that Autumn in Pittsburgh seems quite sunny and low on humidity. A truly spectacular and perfect season. The foliage really sticks around here, also, for a good while. In Nashville it came and the leaves fell right off due to how horrifically dry their summers are.

[bradjl2009]

Originally Posted by MorphioMacabre

Mugatu - Seattle actually is often quite sunny in summer actually. They get a lot of days free of clouds with electric blue skies. A lot of people do not realize this.

When I visited Seattle in summer of last year, they were having an unusually hot summer. However, according to the friend I was visiting, and many locals, it is usually that sunny every summer, just not hot at all. Their average highs in July are generally upper 60s to mid 70s. When I went it was near 100. Though I will note they have very dry summer daytime weather, which Pittsburgh is rather humid. Seattle's summers are far, far more comfortable (for someone like me who doesn't like heat) than Pittsburgh - and yet their winters, while cloudy, are nice temperature wise...and Pittsburgh is extremely cloudy in winter too as we all know.

I love cool, misty weather. Which means I get a lot of what I enjoy here in Pittsburgh in early winter and spring through early summer. I enjoy it very much, the full seasons, the lust, moist humid continental climate. (Yes, I know it is officially on the very border of Humid Sub-Tropical, but some climatologists want to change the parameters for the classifications, as Pittsburgh obviously doesn't belong in any sort of "tropical" classification. Somewhere like NYC I can see being on the northernmost part of the Humid Sub-Tropical).

I love Pittsburgh. And all my family is in the East, so I'm not moving anytime soon. But I adore Seattle's climate. That is actually my ideal...Seattle WA or Vancouver BC. *Sigh* Maybe one day...

How Pittsburgh can be considered anything sub tropical is beyond me. We get double the snowfall that Philly one of the northern most sub tropical cities get.