Northern magnolia with snow, 17 March 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
21 March 2026
The weather has been a yo-yo this week with a sunny high of 68°F on Sunday and 60°F on Monday. Then it started snowing hard at 6:00pm Monday. Three inches covered the City while at Pittsburgh’s weather station the snow was twice as deep. It set a new record for a yo-yo day.
Yesterday was the snowiest 60°F day we've seen in our records (dating back to 1948). Out here in Moon Township, the high was 60 degrees and we measured 6.3" of snow. pic.twitter.com/Clj9YCz6Wv
After the snow stopped, ragged clouds raced across the sky at 10:30pm, 16 March.
After the snow stopped, ragged clouds, 16 March 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
The next morning the sky was clear (see the meteor blog) and the snow began to melt. Dippy still wore a snow cloak at 10:50am.
Snow on Dippy, 17 March 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
Damage to northern magnolia flowers (photo at top) and red maples became evident.
Damaged red maple flowers in Pittsburgh, 17 March 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
But soon the sun had warmed the ground so much that steam rose from the mulch outside Carnegie Museum.
video by Kate St. John
Two days later it was again cold in the morning when four of us walked the Muddy Creek Trail at Moraine State Park. By noon it warmed up considerably. We found skunk cabbage and coltsfoot poking up through the snow.
Skunk cabbage at Muddy Creek Trail, Moraine State Park, 19 March 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)Coltsfoot beginning to open at Moraine State Park, 19 March 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
And we found out that it is Mud Season! … Melissa’s beagle, Henry, is keeping his paws clean.
Mud Season at Moraine State Park. Henry waits for us to continue walking, 19 March 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
March is supposed to come in like a lion and go out like a lamb. This week we saw lamb, lion, lamb.
On St. Patrick’s Day around 9:00am I was not paying attention to the sky. I wasn’t looking out the window and if I’d heard a faint sonic boom I would have dismissed it as construction noise. Meanwhile, outside many windows, a 7-ton asteroid crossed the sky in just 3 seconds and exploded over Ohio.
The meteor entered the Earth’s atmosphere 50 miles above Lake Erie and sped southward over Ohio. Amazingly, the sky was so clear in Pittsburgh that it was easily seen here. (If I’d only been looking!) The best online footage came from Pittsburgh’s National Weather Service.
One of our employees, Jared Rackley, caught this morning's meteor on camera from the Pittsburgh area. pic.twitter.com/2LdqOpChti
On the weather front, half the week was too wet to enjoy so I only went out when the sun was shining. Warmer at the end of the week than the beginning. On 1 March walked at Herrs Island.
Herr’s Island back channel of the Allegheny River, 1 March 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
Way across the (finally thawed!) Allegheny River I saw a grebe-shaped water bird with a white face and chest and a black head. Even though these digiscoped photos are lousy, they confirm a horned grebe (Podiceps auritus) in non-breeding plumage.
Documentation photos of horned grebe at Allegheny River, 1 March 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
Never abundant in Pittsburgh, most horned grebes breed in western Canada but a few stay in our area all winter if there’s open water. Here’s what they look like in a good photo by Steve Gosser.
Horned grebes, 15 Feb 2014 (photo by Steve Gosser)
Yesterday in Schenley Park we discovered that the Panther Hollow Bridge rehab project is temporarily in a VERY LOUD phase. Here are just 10 seconds of it.
Panther Hollow Bridge rehab project was VERY LOUD on 6 March 2026 (video by Kate St. John)
My guess at what’s happening: Inside the draped portion of the bridge I *think* they’re blasting off the peeling paint and rust. On the bridge deck there are two loud sucking machines that maintain negative air pressure.
Because of the noise there were almost no birds at this end of the park. We found them at the Bartlett end along with other signs of spring.
The buds look fat on this yellow buckeye (Aesculus flava).
Yellow buckeye buds in Schenley Park, 6 March 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
Cornelian cherry (Cornus mas) buds are already opening.
Cornelian cherry buds opening in Schenley Park, 6 March 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
The weather is warm today (77°F) but will return to near freezing on Wednesday night. Spring is moving forward in fits and starts.
What to do with three feet of snow? That’s the big question in Rhode Island this morning as they cope with yesterday’s record-breaking Nor’easter that dumped as much as 37.9 inches (almost 1 meter) of snow on our country’s smallest state.
The top ten snowfall locations in the storm’s path as of 9:00pm last night give the prize to Providence, Rhode Island airport (T.F. Green Airport).
You can see snow hammering Rhode Island in this radar loop.
Here's a loop of the 2026 Historic Major Blizzard. This Blizzard smashed the Rhode Island Statewide snow total record set nearly 50 years ago. This Blizzard dropped over 36 Inches of snow in an area in Rhode Island… pic.twitter.com/jKESQzq4Cb
The radar also shows that the wind was terrific all along the coast. Today there are widespread power outages including 156,000 without power on Cape Cod, 37,000-to-130,000 in New Jersey, 21,100 in Rhode Island.
It’s going to be a challenging couple of weeks for the hardest hit areas.
Panther Hollow Lake thawing and overflowing, Schenley Park, 20 Feb 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
21 February 2026
Yesterday it was windy when I took a long walk in Schenley Park. By the end of the walk I’d peeled off my coat, so warm it felt like spring. Nothing was greening up yet, but it was the perfect day for melting old patches of ice and snow.
All the streams were running fast with melt water and Panther Hollow Lake was overflowing its western, downstream edge (photo at top), both typical for this time of year.
These waterfalls are flowing to Panther Hollow Lake while the wind lifts leaves in the background.
Schenley Park, 20 Feb 2026, video by Kate St. John
When I reached the bottom of the valley Panther Hollow Lake looked somewhat ice covered but it is completely ice free among the cattails …
Panther Hollow Lake thawing, Schenley Park, 20 Feb 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
… and ice free around the edges.
Panther Hollow Lake thawing, Schenley Park, 20 Feb 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
Wind pushed the water in the opposite direction of flow.
Schenley Park, 20 Feb 2026, video by Kate St. John
Panther Hollow Lake freezes early and thaws early because it is so shallow. Though named a “lake” it has all the characteristics of a small pond. About a 1/3 of the area inside the concrete edge is thick with cattails — a wetland — and the open water is only about 4 inches deep with a maximum depth of 2 feet in one small spot.
Small or shallow ponds present some hazards that are often unexpected. Their size and shallowness allow the water in them to cool quickly and catch [freeze] easily. They often provide early season ice. They also come in early enough in the season that they are likely to see significant warm spells with the attendant risks of ice weakened and thinned by thawing. During a thaw in ice less than three inches thick, grain boundary melting can take place in a couple hours in warm conditions, especially in the spring when the sun is strong and the days are long. If the ice was weak yesterday from thaw conditions but feels hard and strong in the morning it may be an illusion. The only hard ice is on the surface. It is called overnight ice. The sun only has to soften the hard top layer to make the ice sheet much weaker.
p.s. If you ever walk on Panther Hollow Lake’s ice and fall through you’re for an unpleasant surprise. The bottom is covered in a thick layer of sediment which, I’ve heard, is so mucky that you will sink into if you try standing on it. You’ll have to leave your boots behind.
It’s hard to imagine that frozen water protects plants from freezing. Here’s how it works.
January was so cold in the eastern US that freezing temperatures hit Florida twice last month, on January 16 and on Jan 31–Feb 1, 2026. Florida citrus growers prepared ahead of time to save their crops and protect their trees. They …
Picked ripe fruit before the freeze.
Wrapped trees in sheets or burlap from the ground up to main branches or covered them entirely -or-
Mist-sprayed the trees continuously to protect against frost damage. Water must be applied continuously without interruption or this method fails. Spraying uses so much water that it is inappropriate for drought-stricken areas.
With Lake Erie completely(*) frozen, water birds that would have spent all winter on the lake have come south to open water on the Ohio and Monongahela Rivers in Pittsburgh. This week a couple of white-winged scoters (Melanitta deglandi) that normally spend the winter on the Atlantic or Pacific coasts showed up at Emsworth Locks and Dam on the Ohio.
Charity Kheshgi and I went to see them on Tuesday when it was sunny and 50°F(!). We hoped to see a red-necked grebe that had been there on Monday but no. However we saw many ducks, two ravens tumbling, and four bald eagles (checklist here).
Ed McKaveney photographed the male scoter and a bald eagle on the day before.
At the top I said Lake Erie is completely(*) frozen. Yes it is except … On 8 February northeast winds buffeted Lake Erie’s ice and in just four hours it cracked all the way across the lake as seen on satellite. The crack reaches 80 miles from Port Burwell, Ontario, Canada to Sandusky, Ohio. In some places it is 3km (1.86 miles) wide.
Starlings … Poof! … Pittsburgh, 30 Jan 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
7 February 2026
Since returning home late last a week, I’ve seen a lot of old snow.
In a walk on 30 January a flock of starlings burst off a tree near the Shakespeare statue at Carnegie Music Hall. Shakespeare had old snow in his lap.
The sidewalks were easy to navigate but the crosswalks were blocked by icy piles of plowed snow.
London plane trees in snow, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, 30 Jan 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
Old snow on the roofs and a pink sunset.
Old snow on the roof at sunset, 30 Jan 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
Last week I saw Bobcat Skid-Steer Loaders all over the city moving snow to out of the way places. This pile on Flagstaff Hill probably came from Frew Street. By the end of the week the crosswalks were clear.
Pile of snow moved from street to Flagstaff Hill, 2 Feb 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
But we were worried that yesterday’s predicted snow would bury us again. The National Weather Service said it would be a “fast moving clipper.”
The snow squalls hit last night around 10pm. A whiteout at 10:15pm. Light snow and better visibility just four minutes later.
Snow squall, 6 Feb 10:15pm
4 minutes later
And this morning, less than an inch of new snow in the city.
Starlings browse leftover fruits in a street tree, 17 January 2021 (photo by Kate St. John)
17 January 2026
This week I was so busy indoors that I have no photos for “Seen This Week” except for the high point that I’ve already described: Falconcams Cleaned For The Nesting Season. So here’s a look back at what I saw This Week during the last 6 years.
2021: Starlings swarm a street tree to pick off its last fruit
2026: Light snow hides the distance this morning before dawn.
Merlin on a snag at Schenley Park golf course, 25 Jan 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)Sun Pillar during the Gleam at Sunset, 14 Jan 2023, 5:07pm (photo by Kate St. John)Sun pillar at sunrise, 11 Jan 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)Halo with two sundogs, seen at Schenley Park on 16 Jan 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)Light snow hides the distance before dawn, 17 Jan 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
