Despite ominous snowfall predictions for this year’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade, thousands of green-clad revelers and participants still gathered Saturday morning in Downtown Pittsburgh for the two-hour event.

The route started at the Greyhound bus station near Liberty Avenue, moved down Grant Street before turning onto Boulevard of the Allies to end at Stanwix Street.

Bagpiper Charlie Gledich of Shaler, who was preparing to march in the parade as part of the Allegheny County Sheriff Department’s pipe and drum band, said he has been playing in the parade for as long as he can remember.

“I was here for all the snow in ’93,” Gledich said. “It was so bad, they had to have the snow plows lead in the front,” he recalled.

Gledich’s grandson, Alex Higley of Ben Avon, was preparing to play snare drum in the pipe band with his grandfather.

Most of the snowfall stopped, or at least was reduced to light flurries after the parade started, with intermittent sunlight breaking through the gray clouds.

When asked how this year’s weather compared with the Blizzard of ’93, Gledich responded.

“It doesn’t even come close,” he added with a grin. “This is nothing. A perfect day.”

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