Nov 23, 2022 3 min read

People keep asking me if we can be done with winter weather already after this past week of frigid temperatures and snow. It’s only late November and we’re already tired of the cold weather.

I always hear folks joke that Pittsburgh seemingly jumps right from summer to winter or from winter to summer with barely a few nice days of spring or fall weather to enjoy. It does sometimes seem that way! This November sure is one to remember (or to forget), depending on which of the weather extremes you enjoy.

We have one week of November to go, and can you believe we’re averaging 2.2 degrees above normal in Pittsburgh? It’s been a wacky weather month for certain – and we’re not even in Buffalo shoveling out from 71 inches of snow in one day alone! We missed setting a record low temperature this past Sunday morning by only 2 degrees and high temperatures the entire weekend struggled to reach 30. That’s almost 20 degrees colder than normal for mid- to late November in this region, as our 30-year average high this time of year still hovers in the upper 40s.

Lest you think that this month has been nothing but chilly, I’ll remind you that the cold weather sure does shorten our memory. Have we already forgotten how warm it was to start this month? November 2022 started off unseasonably warm with our high temperature on the first day topping out at 60 degrees. We soared into the 70s most of that week and hit a high of 79 degrees on Nov. 5. We’ve hit 79 in Pittsburgh in November before only three times, and the warmest temperature recorded here in November was 82 degrees back in 1961. During the first 12 days of this month, we only had high temperatures cooler than 50 degrees three times.

The fair-weather fall party ended abruptly. Our high temperature last Saturday was a paltry 31 degrees. On Sunday, we topped out at a frigid 29 degrees. The record low was 17, and we almost got there with a low of 19 Sunday morning along with single- digit wind chills. Despite the bitter cold, we didn’t set any records. The coldest temperature recorded in Pittsburgh in November is 8 degrees, set in 1929.

Did I mention we already have had 3.3 inches of snow? You know how I love to ski, and I’m giddy that the ski resorts got a few inches of white stuff and have temperatures cold enough to crank up the snow machines. That doesn’t mean I’m rooting for any temperature below 20 degrees … ever. I have my limits.

By the way, we officially get a “White Christmas” (1 inch of snow on the ground on Christmas Day) only 17% of the time in Pittsburgh, so it will be interesting to see whether it ends up white or just plain warm!

Kristin Emery can be reached at kristinemery1@yahoo.com.