Category Archives: Weather & Sky

Too Hot To Handle!

Climate Change, Weather & Sky

18 June 2024

When a heat dome persisted over the Central US. last August my reaction was “At least it isn’t happening here.” Well, now it is.

U.S. Day 3-7 Hazards Outlook for 20-24 June 2024 from NOAA Weather Prediction Center

A high pressure system that was overheating the Southwest moved in on Monday and put a cap over us that’s circulating hot air and trapping heat at the surface.

Diagram of a heat dome from Wikimedia Commons by NWS/NOAA

Meanwhile there are very few clouds to block the sun. It just keeps getting hotter and hotter. Climate Central says the metro areas of Indianapolis, Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., New York City, and Boston are experiencing:

  • Record high temperatures from 94°F to 99°F
  • High humidity that makes it feels hotter when heat index values reach 105°F
  • Nighttime temperatures never cool below the 70-76°F range.

Pittsburgh’s forecast is all orange.

Heat advisory forecast for 18-21 June 2024 (screenshot from NWS Pittsburgh)

Meanwhile all of us are under stress, especially plants, animals, outdoor workers, people without air conditioning and homeless people.

In addition to all the physical changes, heat makes us irritable, even angry.

Last evening severe thunderstorms knocked out power to more than 100,000 electric customers in southwestern PA. I’m fortunate to have both electricity and air conditioning so I’m staying indoors.

I can hardly wait for it to end.

p.s. US weather maps never show Canada. Did the heat just cease at the border? Nope. It’s hot in Canada, too!

Watch a String of Lights Cross the Sky

Books & Events, Weather & Sky
screenshot from Starlink video, some time before autumn 2023, on ViralVideoLab

9 June 2024

On a woodcock walk at Hillman State Park on the night of 13 April, we paused to look at a beaver pond when someone pointed to a strange row of lights moving silently across the sky. There were more than 20 of them, obviously man-made and kind of creepy. None of us knew what they were. The next morning I figured out they were Starlink satellites.

This week Pittsburghers will have five opportunities to see this eerie phenomenon. Here’s what they look like, even without binoculars.

Starlink Satellites train seen in the sky Elon Musk SpaceX 2024 (embedded from ViralVideoLab on YouTube)

Note: This group contains about 60 satellites. Nowadays SpaceX launches about 20 per batch.

A Starlink satellite string can be seen only in the few days following a Starlink Falcon rocket launch. You must be in the right location (under the flight path), with a clear sky and within two hours of sunset or sunrise.

This 5-minute video “explainer” by meteorologist Brad Panovich in Charlotte, NC, recorded in September 2023, explains the network of Starlink satellites, how the string is deployed and why you only see them for a couple of days if you’re lucky.

video embedded from Meteorologist Brad Panovich on YouTube

Where and When?

The SpaceX Starlink Satellites Tracker website predicts when a Starlink train will pass overhead for your selected location. The website cannot predict very far in advance because the calculations must be made after a payload rocket has launched. Though the launches are scheduled, the actual time of liftoff can change.

screenshot from findstarlink.com for Pittsburgh PA on 9 June 2024 at 6am

Will the sky be clear for viewing the transit this week? So far so good according to the Pittsburgh Clear Sky Chart. Check the Starlink schedule above or on the web, then find a patch of dark sky and look up at the right moment in the direction indicated.

Creepy, eh?

And according to Wikipedia, “Astronomers have raised concerns about the effect the constellation may have on ground-based astronomy, and how the satellites will contribute to an already congested orbital environment.”

More information: Starlink is a satellite internet constellation whose purpose is to provide worldwide internet coverage and global mobile broadband [for a fee]. Starlink Services LLC is a subsidiary of SpaceX which is owned by Elon Musk. Since 2019 SpaceX has launched over 6,000 mass-produced small satellites into low Earth orbit. Nearly 12,000 satellites are planned to be deployed, with a possible later extension to 34,400.

City Tornado Visits the Zoo

Weather & Sky
screenshot from WTAE-TV Pittsburgh video embedded below

20 May 2024

Late Friday afternoon I saw a very dark cloud outside my window that looked almost flat like a wall. The horizon obscured the bottom edge as the cloud moved away toward Highland Park.

Shortly thereafter the cloud spawned a tornado that touched down at the Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium. The National Weather Service rated it EF1, the strongest of four tornadoes in the Pittsburgh metro area that afternoon.

Preliminary Damage Survey Results, Highland Park tornado, 17 May 2024 (report from NWS via X.com)
video embedded from WTAE-TV Pittsburgh

Fortunately no people or animals were injured and the most dramatic damage was a car flattened by a tree in the Zoo parking lot. The video below shows local reactions including people waiting in a car on the Highland Park Bridge for the tornado to pass. Glad I was not there!

video embedded from WTAE-TV Pittsburgh

Those of you who live in severe tornado regions probably think Pittsburghers are wimps to get excited about an EF1 tornado but in fact tornadoes are rare here.

video embedded from KDKA, CBS Pittsburgh

The last time one touched down in the City of Pittsburgh was in 1998. Read more about it here.

20 Years Ago: A Tornado Came To Town

Seen This Week: Warblers and Tulips in the Trees

Insects, Migration, Trees, Weather & Sky
Blackpoll warbler, Presque Isle, 12 May 2024 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)

18 May 2024

Best birds this week were seen at Presque Isle State Park on Sunday 12 May while birding with Charity and Kaleem Kheshgi. At Leo’s Landing many of the birds were at eye level including this blackpoll warbler and the barn and bank swallows.

Barn and bank swallows, Presque Isle, 12 May 2024 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)

Even the treetop birds, like this yellow-throated vireo, cooperated for photographs.

Yellow-throated vireo, Presque Isle, 12 May 2024 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)

Was this redstart was looking askance at us? Or eyeing a bug?

American redstart, Presque Isle, 12 May 2024 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)

I had high hopes for the Bird Banding at Hays Woods on Wednesday 15 May but we were in for a surprise. No birds to band! Bummer. 🙁 This restart, banded earlier in the week, shows what we could have seen.

American redstart at Bird Lab banding (photo by Kate St. John)

After we left the banding station we had good looks at a scarlet tanager and found this Kentucky flat millipede (Apheloria virginiensis). It’s colored black and orange because it’s toxic.

  • It secretes cyanide compounds as a defense. Don’t touch it!
  • You might find one perched and dying on top of a twig. That’s because it can host the parasitic fungus Arthrophaga myriapodina which causes infected individuals to climb to an elevated spot before death (per Wikipedia). Eeeew.
Centipede Aphelosia virginiensis, Hays Woods, 15 May 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)

This week there were flowers in the tulip trees (Liriodendron) obscured by thick leaves. This flower came into view when a squirrel bit off the twig and didn’t retrieve the branch.

Tulip tree flower and leaves, 16 May 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)

Instead of rain on Wednesday we had a beautiful sunrise.

Sunrise 14 May 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)

To make up for no rain on Wednesday it’s pouring right now on Saturday.

Spectacular Skies Over Pittsburgh

Weather & Sky
Rainbow just before sunset in Pittsburgh, 11 May 2024, 7:30pm (photo by Kate St. John)

15 May 2024

Last week the sky above Pittsburgh was spectacular over and over again.

  • Stunning storms on May 8
  • Beautiful sunrise on the 9th
  • Northern lights on the 10th
  • Double rainbow on the 11th.

No storm photos from me (!incredibly close lightning) but I photographed sunrise on the 8th.

Sunrise on 9 May 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)

Alas I missed the northern lights on Friday.

But was treated to the double rainbow on Saturday (with raindrops on the window).

Rainbow just before sunset in Pittsburgh, 11 May 2024, 7:29pm (photo by Kate St. John)

Photographer Dave DiCello takes dramatic photos of Pittsburgh every day from the West End overlook and captured every one of these spectacular sky events.

For more sky photos see:

This week is sunny or cloudy but nothing remarkable.

The sky is taking a break after a busy week.

(credits are in the captions)

Seen Last Week: Wildflowers at Barking Slopes

Phenology, Plants & Fungi, Weather & Sky
Coltsfoot gone to seed, Frick Park, 9 April 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)

16 April 2024

Last week was so full of news, from peregrines to floods, that I had to skip my usual “Seen This Week” report. Meanwhile Spring isn’t holding still. Wildflowers are blooming and the early ones have already gone to seed. Here’s a selection of my best photos from last week, April 8-11.

Above and below, three photos from Frick Park. All of these are alien and some are invasive but they are pretty.

  • Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara), at top, is found in disturbed soil.
  • Speedwell’s (Veronica persica) tiny flowers bloom in fields and lawns. A dewdrop dangled above this one from a blade of grass.
  • Lesser Celandine (Ficaria verna) is abundant along creeks and river banks including Duck Hollow and Nine Mile Run. Very invasive, but pretty, which is why it was imported as a garden plant.
Eyebright, Frick Park, 9 April 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)
Lesser Celandine, Frick Park, 8 April 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)

Last Thursday I visited Barking Slopes for just an hour before the rain chased me away. Even though I didn’t have much time I saw more than 15 species in bloom including:

Large-flowered Trillium, Barking Slopes, 11 April 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)
Spring Beauty, Barking Slopes, 11 April 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)
Trout Lily, Barking Slopes, 11 April 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)
Blue Cohosh flowers, Barking Slopes, 11 April 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)
Large-flowered bellwort, Barking Slopes, 11 April 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)
Star Chickweed, Barking Slopes, 11 April 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)

Spring is here! Get outdoors so you don’t miss it.

(all photos by Kate St. John)

Honeybees Go Home for the Eclipse

Insects, Weather & Sky
Total solar eclipse, Berea, Ohio, 8 April 2024 (photo by Jeff Cieslak)

9 April 2024

For three minutes yesterday afternoon, people in a wide swath of the U.S. from Texas to Maine were wowed by the total solar eclipse. Jeff Cieslak was in the totality zone in Berea, Ohio and captured the photo at top. Look closely at the dark edge and you’ll see solar prominences (flares).

Map of the path of 8 April 2024 solar eclipse totality (image from NASA via Wikimedia Commons)

Pittsburgh and Dubois, PA, just east of the totality zone, were both close enough to experience a 97% eclipse. Our light level was like dusk and the temperature got cooler. Charity Kheshgi captured the partial eclipse in Pittsburgh at 3:17 to 3:20pm.

View of the 97% eclipse in Pittsburgh, 8 April 2024 at 3:19pm ET (photo by Charity Kheshgi)

Meanwhile Marianne Atkinson noticed a change in honeybee behavior at her home in Dubois, PA. She’s providing a honeybee feeder this spring, filled with sugar water, to feed hungry bees in the early days before the flowers bloom. Yesterday morning her feeder was mobbed with honeybees and was running dry.

Honeybees at the feeder, Dubois, PA, 7 April 2024 (video by Marianne Atkinson)

There were too many bees for her to safely refill the feeder so she put out a second one (white rim). It was mobbed, too.

Honeybees at two feeders in Dubois, PA, 8 April 2024 before the partial eclipse (photo by Marianne Atkinson)

And then the eclipse began. Marianne describes what happened.

I had just added a second honey bee feeder this afternoon, not long before the eclipse started. But, during the eclipse at 97%, there were very few bees on either feeder! The yellow feeder only had two bees and the gravel feeder had 3 bees. I took this opportunity to add more nectar to the yellow feeder, since it was empty.

[Meanwhile] The many American Goldfinches and Pine Siskins were chattering away in the trees nearby during the whole eclipse. The sky had gotten a little darker, but not dark like a solar eclipse in totality. There were clouds during most of the eclipse, with occasional peaks of sun or seeing it through thin clouds. I was able to view it off and on.

— email from Marianne Atkinson, Dubois, PA, 8 April 2024

Honeybees are diurnal and they return to their hive at dusk to spend the night indoors. Apparently the light level during a 97% eclipse is low enough to prompt bees to go home. After the eclipse the honeybees came back quickly to both feeders. Marianne said, “They had just recently discovered the pea gravel feeder, but did not waste any time in utilizing it!”

Did you notice any special animal or insect behavior during the eclipse? Leave a comment with your observations.

(credits are in the captions)

Seen This Week: Graupel, Flood and Flowers

Deer, Phenology, Plants & Fungi, Weather & Sky
Bloodroot blooming at Independence Marsh, 31 March 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)

6 April 2024

This week March went out like a lamb and April came in like a lion.

After photographing garden flowers on Easter morning I traveled out to Independence Marsh in Beaver County. I did not find my target bird, rusty blackbirds, but I did find spring flowers: Dutchmans breeches, cutleaf toothwort, bloodroot (above) and the first tiny bloom on shooting star (below).

Early bloom on shooting star, Independence Marsh, 31 March 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)

As soon as March was over, things went wrong. I should have known when I saw this troubled sky of mammatus clouds on Saturday, 30 March. Not a good sign.

Mammatus clouds presage a week of rain, snow and graupel in Pittsburgh, 30 March 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)

It rained and rained and rained on April 1-3, setting a record of 2.68 inches on April 2. Streams and basements were hit hard while the rain was falling. The rivers rose, as shown at at Duck Hollow on 4 April with the Monongahela River at parking lot level. (more flood photos and videos here)

Duck Hollow parking lot — A River Runs Through It — 4 April 2024, 7:19am ET

Later that same day, Thursday 4 April, the temperature fell and so did graupel.

Graupel falls o n4 April 2024 (video by Kate St. John)

Today it’s cold but the precipitation has finally stopped.

Meanwhile ….Remember those beautiful tulips I posted last Sunday, Easter morning?

BEFORE –> Tulips on N. Neville St on Easter morning, 31 March 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)

And remember the deer I saw between two highrises in Oakland on 24 March?

A deer browsing the garden at a highrise in Pittsburgh, 5:30am 24 March 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)

Well, the two met up and the tulips did not fare well.

AFTER –> Same tulips eaten by deer on N. Neville St as of 2 April 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)

That was on N Neville Street. Here’s N Craig Street.

BEFORE –> Tulips in front of a highrise on N Craig St, Easter morning, 31 March 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)
AFTER –> Tulips eaten by deer on N Craig St, 4 April 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)

Deer damage has come to the “asphalt jungle.”

(photos by Kate St. John)

Duck Hollow Flooded & It’s Still Raining

Weather & Sky
Monongahela River floods the Duck Hollow parking lot, 4 April 2024, 7:20am (photo by Kate St. John)

4 April 2024

This morning I checked NOAA’s National Water Prediction Service and saw there was a major flood today on the Monongahela River at Braddock Lock & Dam, just upriver from Duck Hollow. It looked like it would crest this morning …

Monongahela River gauge readings & prediction for Braddock Lock and Dam, 4 April 2024 at 5am (graph from NOAA & USGS National Water Prediction Service)

… so I rushed down to Duck Hollow just after sunrise and here’s what I saw.

It was so deep that the parking lot garbage can was floating. Needless to say there were no barges or ducks on the river.

The birds were singing as I filmed the river at the mouth of Nine Mile Run.

Was I there for the crest? I took a two minute video while the water was rising. See the pink line indicating the high water mark in these slides from my video.

As it turns out the river crested today at 4:00am EDT.

Monongahela River gauge readings at Braddock Lock and Dam, 4 April 2024 (graph from NOAA & USGS National Water Prediction Service)

The National Weather Service says we’ve broken the record for the wettest start of any year in Pittsburgh since record-keeping began in 1871.

No wonder there’s a flood.

(photos and videos by Kate St. John; diagrams from @NWSPittsburgh)

Flood Stage!

Weather & Sky
Monongahela River flood at Duck Hollow, 10 Sept 2018 (photo by Kate St. John)

2 April 2024

CORRECTION (3 APRIL at 7am): When I first published this article, I didn’t realize I was using outdated maps so my analysis was wrong. NOAA changed to their mapping tool on 28 March; the new tool is much better. Maps, links and the flood assessment have been corrected.

Today (2 April 2024) it will be warm in Pittsburgh (71°F) but very wet with severe thunderstorms, 2-3 inches of rain, and up to 4 inches in localized downpours. There’s a Flood Watch through this evening for rivers, creeks, streams, and flood-prone locations.

It is unlikely that the Monongahela River will flood as much as it did in 2018, above in September, below in February. But it will reach flood stage.

The river is expected to rapidly rise Wednesday (3 April) and crest at 26.7 feet early Thursday (4 April), just below the moderate flood stage. As of Wednesday morning, it was over 21 feet.

— Post Gazette, 3 April 2024
Monongahela River flood at Duck Hollow, 17 Feb 2018 (photo by John English)

Our streams, creeks and low-lying roads will be in trouble. Water could rise suddenly. Watch out for flash floods on a road near you.

Flooded road (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

The National Water Prediction Service provides a dynamic water prediction map for the entire U.S. updated with current conditions (circles) and water level predictions (squares around the circle). The colors on the 4/3/2024 at 9:00pm map below mean:

  • Purple = Major Flood
  • Red = Moderate Flood
  • Orange = Minor Flood
  • Yellow = just below or nearly at Flood Stage
  • Green = no flood
  • tiny blue dots mean No Data
screenshot of map from National Water Prediction Service at water.noaa.gov, 3 April 2024, 9:00pm ET

The map shows that the Youghiogheny River at Sutersville, PA is in Major Flood (purple) and so are several places in Ohio.

Click here to see the current National Water Prediction Map for Pittsburgh.

If you’re curious about flood conditions and forecasts throughout the U.S., visit water.noaa.gov.

water.noaa.gov as of 3 April 2024 at 7am