Hate Pittsburgh weather? It hates you, too

The city of Pittsburgh is punishing us. The humidity, the wind and the five-minute… The city of Pittsburgh is punishing us. The humidity, the wind and the five-minute thunderstorms that continuously interrupt otherwise beautiful weather: punishment.

I came to this realization while I was transporting a pile of clothing, which was at the time marinating in a disturbingly gray soup of dirty rainwater. I was wet, cold and shaking like an over-electrified Furby, and, damn it, I wanted to know why.

Why, for instance, does summer Pittsburgh weather always appear to be hot and sunny until the exact second an unfortunate person, such as myself, steps outside, and then it instantly begins to pour little day-ruining drops of devastation? Why so random?

Friends, that was when I realized that I was being played. We were all being played. Pittsburgh weather isn’t random. No, it is meticulously planned – by the very city itself, I suspect – to teach us a lesson. To keep us measly puppets in line. You have to understand that Pittsburgh is like the Oprah of the weather world – it can be extremely generous, but do not get on its bad side, or it will get you back in ways you can’t even imagine.

Take this week, for instance. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that the Friends of the Pittsburgh Urban Forest have charged the city with abusing its trees. Apparently we citizens have been cinching tree bases with rope and strangling trunks with ornamental lights (an attractive and tasteful year-round decoration!). The news is made public, and BAM. Instant thunderstorm. That is what we call classical conditioning.

And there’s more. A little foray into the National Weather Service climate data shows that Pittsburgh has been up to these tricks for quite some time.

Take early May of this year. Mere days after the American Lung Association designated Pittsburgh as the smoggiest U.S. city, what should occur but another massive thunderstorm, effectively spoiling the week of the Fly Pittsburgh Kite Club’s Big Spring Fly and ruining the summer of thousands, or maybe even hundreds, of children.

Or last August when the city had a massive heat wave – in fact, Aug. 3 tied for the hottest day in Pittsburgh history (at 103 degrees). That very day, we Pittsburghers foolishly welcomed Ron Paul into the city, obviously a big no-no. Coincidence? I think not. Allowing Libertarians (who, by the way, hate children) into the city is, like, the biggest insult ever. In fact, I would bet that we get an extra inch of rain annually for every Libertarian in the city.

Of course you’ll hear some people say that cities aren’t conscious, and they certainly don’t have omnipotent powers. They’ll throw around big words like “science” and “lake effect.” OK, listen. It has nothing to do with this bogus “lake effect” meteorological crap. Don’t you think the city has already infiltrated the weather stations? Trust me, it was the first thing it did after taking over the National Aviary (for its secret army of birds). How else could those weathermen – and weatherwomen – afford all the fake tanning agent and Botox?

The simple facts and statistics are right there.

After acquiring years worth of placement in the top 10 dirtiest/smoggiest/most polluted cities in the nation, Pittsburgh also ranked in the top 10 cloudiest U.S. cities in 2006, averaging more than 200 days of annual cloud cover, and is the site of one of the most powerful strokes of lightning ever measured, at 345,000 amperes of electricity, according to the National Weather Service.

It also ranks seventh for tornado activity between the last two weeks of May and the first two weeks of June, according to VorTek, a company that develops tornado assessment software.

So, there is obviously a correlation here between how we treat our city, and how our city treats us. Probably this is a causal relationship, because saying so better supports my argument.

I’ll be the first to admit that Pittsburgh is a backstabbing, conniving little city (I didn’t leave my house for almost a week after the Great Blizzard of ’93), but it’s not too late. We still have a chance to save ourselves. Feed the economy and buy a bunch of those commemorative Pittsburgh incline magnets. Remove those harmful (though attractive and tasteful) lights from the city trees. I promise you, if we don’t start treating the city with more respect, we will end up like Cincinnati, Seattle or the entire state of Florida – yuck!

E-mail Molly your forecast for the city at mog4@pitt.edu.