Heat dents attendance at Westmoreland air show, but not the thrills
Nine Royal Canadian Air Force pilots wowed crowds Sunday when they shot and twirled their Snowbirds through the air during the Shop ‘n Save Westmoreland International Airshow 2025.
Aerobatics aficionados pointed fingers — and cellphone cameras — toward the sun as members of the U.S. Military Academy dramatically parachuted, with trails of smoke behind them, onto the scorching tarmac at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport.
But, despite it all, Sunday’s real story was the heat.
The water, ice-cold lemonade and shaved-ice businesses were booming as families clustered in sparse pockets of shade to cool down. Brimmed hats and umbrellas were as common a sight as sunburned shoulders.
The mid-day mercury hit 90 degrees around 2 p.m. at the Unity airport — and the weather’s weight was reflected in the air show’s crowds, which were visibly thinner than the estimated 20,000 people who turned out Saturday, the event’s first day.
The airport’s temperatures were expected to climb as high as 92 degrees before sundown Sunday — with a possible heat index 10 degrees above that, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Jared Rackley.
Brittnee Boot didn’t need a thermometer to tell her it was unseasonably hot.
Boot, wearing shorts and a tank top, huddled with her boyfriend and three children in a strip of shade underneath a military plane’s 95-long wingspan. She soaked washcloths and kept them glued to her children’s legs as they sat nearby.
By 12:30 p.m., she already had purchased eight bottles of water.
“I think it’s pretty hot,” said Boot, 32, of Mt. Pleasant, with a smile. “We’re just trying to stay under the wing.”
“The breeze does help a bit,” Boot’s boyfriend, Matt Dominick, added.
“We just really need a huge fan,” countered Baylee, Boot’s 13-year-old daughter.
The weather, though, wasn’t the only thing that was hot at one of Westmoreland County’s most iconic annual events.
The aerobatics group “Class of ’45” scorched Earth with daring moves from its World War II-era Corsairs and P-51D Mustangs. Thom Richards took to the skies with his FM2 Wildcat.
The crowd also caught flight demonstrations and aerobatic feats from pilot Patrick McAlee and the Laurel Highlands Aeronautical Academy.
While Erik Edgren, as he did on Saturday, again made his plane dance and plummet without a running engine — he calls his act a “deadstick routine” — the biggest crowd roars went to the Snowbirds.
The Canadian air force’s planes, the two-day event’s headliner, again nailed a mirror-pass maneuver where two airplanes flew just a few feet apart — not to mention one of vessels was upside-down — some 300 feet in the air.
“The Snowbirds, they did an incredible job Saturday — and we expected that again today,” said Dwayne Pickels, a staffer for the Westmoreland County Airport Authority, who helped organize the event.
Despite the temperatures, which Mutual Aid Ambulance Service and event organizers estimated were 10 degrees hotter on cement near the tarmac, nobody had been treated for heat-related ailments or injuries by 1 p.m.
Shawn Penzera, the nonprofit EMS service’s spokesman, didn’t expect that trend to hold for long.
As Saturday’s crowds dissipated around 4 p.m., first responders saw the number of heat stroke reports swell.
Two people were transported Saturday to Latrobe Hospital for treatment for heat-related illnesses, he said. Their condition Sunday remained unknown. At least one person fainted near the cool tent the EMS service was staffing.
“We had one woman who didn’t drink much because she didn’t want to go to the Port-a-Johns,” Penzera said.
At Mutual Aid, a total of 20 paramedics and EMTs were working Sunday afternoon, some patrolling through the crowds on seven different carts, Penzera said. Four ambulances were on scene — just in case.
Sam Radziwon is a pro when the sun cranks up the heat. The 21-year-old Hempfield native has been working in his parents’ Kona Ice truck since the fifth grade.
Though crowds Sunday sometimes thinned out, a steady line of customers clustered around Radziwon’s truck, one of the only shaved-ice vendors on scene.
“Once it cracks 80, it tends to be open season,” Radziwon laughed.
At a nearby stand, Tyler Cecconello was sweating as he hawked fresh — and, most importantly, iced — lemonade.
“We’re staying hydrated and we’re staying under here,” said Cecconello, 22, of Greensburg, as he gestured toward an umbrella creating a circle of shade. “We’re still having a great time.”
Monday’s prospects don’t appear cooler. Rackley, the meteorologist, said temperatures will be at their highest in the area early this week.
On Monday, the heat is expected to reach 94 degrees in Pittsburgh, Rackley said. The record for the day — 95 degrees — has been on the books since 1894.
Tuesday’s record — 96 degrees — was set in 1882, according to the National Weather Service. It’s forecast to reach 94 degrees this Tuesday.
Rackley said the high temperatures are not entirely unusual. It last hit 94 degrees in June in 2024.
But, hitting or exceeding 90 degrees for five straight days — which is the National Weather Service’s current forecast for Pittsburgh — is “fairly rare.” For perspective, it last happened here in 1994 (just two seasons after the Pittsburgh Pirates’ last appearance in the playoff’s National League championships).
Event organizers agreed that the extreme heat did put a dent into Sunday attendance.
“It’s a little smaller than we usually do, but I think we’re still happy with it,” said Pickels of the airport authority. “I think, if it was 10 degrees cooler, we’d have a lot more people here.”
Justin Vellucci is a TribLive reporter covering crime and public safety in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. A longtime freelance journalist and former reporter for the Asbury Park (N.J.) Press, he worked as a general assignment reporter at the Trib from 2006 to 2009 and returned in 2022. He can be reached at jvellucci@triblive.com.
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