Sunny days ahead for beginning of 2019
After a rather dismal year weather wise across Southwestern Pennsylvania, we once again start off a new year with hopes the coming year will be better than the last one. That includes cold, snow, heat and humidity, but at the right time of the year when it鈥檚 expected.Climate is what we expect out of our weather each year and weather is what we actually get.
The past year had a lot of surprises and our weather had a hard time staying on track. You will recall the Arctic weather in January. A day or two is okay, but when it wants to linger for weeks, that鈥檚 not much fun. February was also off base with record warmth. Many days our temperatures reached into the 50s and 60s and even a few 70s, and a new record warm day for the month of 78 degrees. The February warmth was so unusual, it even produced a rare tornado in the city of Uniontown. Tornadoes in Uniontown are quite rare to begin with, but one in February is even more unusual. A good bit of damage was caused by the storm and it also made the front page of the Wall Street Journal newspaper.
Snowfall was rather scarce last year and area ski resorts had a tough time with all the warm weather. We did have one good sized snowstorm, but in a few days the warm weather returned and the snows had melted away. March turned cold near the end and the cold settled in during April for a very chilly month, along with 10 days of snow in April, which again is a bit unusual. The cold spring weather took its toll on area plants and shrubs which had started to bloom up.
The most unusual aspect of the 2018 weather was the rain. The rain came in buckets and caused a great deal of flash flooding across many parts of Southwestern Pennsylvania, along with lots of flood related damages. The rains were also relentless and continued during the entire year, making for the wettest year since weather records commenced in the Pittsburgh region in the year 1850. Many months saw double the normal rainfall and when it was all over the region experienced rain for the year some 15 to 17 inches above what is the average. Average rainfall for Pittsburgh is 38 inches and for Uniontown 42 inches.
Of course, the rains also brought a lot of cloudy, dreary days and when it was not raining, the clouds from the previous day鈥檚 rains lingered or new clouds from the next approaching storm were moving across the region. November and December were the worst and with the short amounts of daylight, it just always seemed so dark and dreary. On a positive note, we did manage 12 days with temperatures of 90 degrees or better. The high for the year was 93 on July 4.
Looking ahead, the first two weeks in January are forecast to be on the mild side with average temperatures above normal for the period and rainfall pretty close to normal. The last two weeks of the month, a bit on the cool side, however, we do not see any bone chilling Arctic cold in the immediate future. The Climate Prediction Center鈥檚 forecast for January through March calls for both temperatures and precipitation to be about normal. We shall see. More good news in that sunset on January 5 is 5:07 p.m. some 10 minutes longer than late December.