Chief Meteorologist Stephen Cropper’s 2022-2023 winter weather forecast

PITTSBURGH — These days, the weather is more unpredictable than ever. Unfortunately, sometimes it can also affect your family’s safety, especially when it comes to cold.

This is why Chief Meteorologist Stephen Cropper pulled his charts, analyzed the trends, and crunched the numbers to give you the very best information about what the coming, undoubtedly freezing, months will bring to the Pittsburgh area.

“I found some troubling trends that could have a big impact on anyone’s daily plans and increase the threat for dangerous travel,” said Cropper.

First, it’s shaping up to be a wetter-than-normal winter, which means at least half the days of each month should bring a cold rain, a wintry mix or snow. Second, there’s a better chance we’ll see more big-impact events, such as below-average cold and bigger snowstorms. Third, when we get wintry weather could be more important than how much we see.

For the third year in a row, La Niña will help steer the storm track south. That means messy winter weather will keep you busy again this year, so have the umbrella, ice scrapers and shovels on standby.

We saw it last year, when precipitation was above average for most of the winter months and again the year before. A wetter pattern could also mean another year of bigger single-month snowstorms. That’s because there’s more moisture to be wrung out as snow, and because La Niña leaves the door open for some of the Earth’s coldest air to move in.

The polar vortex is the weather wild card, and we’ve seen it the past two years. We had 20 days below freezing earlier this year, along with a morning low of 6 below. Remember the eight inches we shoveled in March or the nine-incher we had in December the year before.

Two of the snowiest months on record helped give us above-average snowfall seasons.

I also see similar trends again this year. For starters, we should see 35 to 40 shots of accumulating snow, most in the 1-to-3 inch range. Six or seven storms should bring between 3 to 5 inches, and three or four of the snowstorms will pile up 5 inches or more. That will take us to a slightly above-average snowfall season of 45 to 50 inches.

January should be our snowiest month, but similar to the past few years, there will also be time to thaw out. Last year we had record warmth the day after Christmas, when the temperature soared to 68 degrees.

But the real winter story may be when snow falls, not just how much.

I found more snow fell overnight and early morning the last two years, especially between 4 and 9 a.m. That means bigger impacts to your daily plans and an increase in dangerous travel with more cars on the roads.

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