Pittsburgh weather pushed the city’s Fourth of July fireworks show to 10 p.m. Saturday, a half-hour later than planned, after persistent heat, humidity and intermittent thunderstorms disrupted holiday programming. The display still went ahead over downtown Pittsburgh and drew thousands of viewers.
Point State Park and the North Shore
James Engel wrote that tens of thousands of colorful explosives were launched from barges on the city’s three rivers and from the rooftop of the Wyndham Grand Hotel. The show lit up the downtown Pittsburgh sky in one of the largest fireworks displays in the city’s history, tied to the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding.
Much of the Independence Day programming scheduled for Point State Park and the North Shore was scrapped because of the weather. That left the fireworks as the main holdover of the day’s celebration, even as the afternoon conditions kept changing the plan.
Acrisure Stadium
Hundreds gathered at Acrisure Stadium to stay dry and watch France and Paraguay on large screens broadcasting the FIFA World Cup. The setup gave people a place to wait out the weather before the fireworks began, instead of leaving the celebration to end with the cancellations.
The late start was the clearest change for viewers: the show began at 10 p.m., not at the scheduled time, but it still happened after the weather had already forced part of the holiday program off the board. The open question left by the day is which Independence Day activities at Point State Park and the North Shore were the ones scrapped.
