Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Sadly the weather has taken a turn for the worse here in PHG.

Cold and rainy is in the forecast for the next few days.  So while I am curled up in bed, watching The West Wing, I did a bit of googling about Pittsburgh weather patterns. 

Probably the best, NON-scientific reason I found was "mother nature is smiting us for what we did to her during the steel era."

While part of that might be true, I did a bit more digging.  So it turns out that PGH is the second cloudiest major city in the US with only 45% of possible sunlight filtering to the surface.  That's right my fellow readers ... we beat out Seattle, Washington by one percentage point. 

One of the main reasons is Lake Erie.  As air moves over the lake, it creates pattens of instabilities which then produces clouds.  Another reason for the clouds and rain, especially in the winter and spring, is the warm and cold fronts which come across the country.

A co-worker kept telling me "one inch of rain equals 6 inches of snow, so be grateful the temperature is still above freezing."  I guess she has a pretty good point there.

All this talk of rain got me thinking about one of my all time favorite books, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.  Ironically enough, there is now a book out there called Pickles to Pittsburgh.