Showers and storms Wednesday, especially late

A cold front will bring scattered showers this morning with a better chance for storms this evening.

Rain & Storms Wednesday

Wednesday will be mostly cloudy throughout the day. While most of the afternoon may stay dry, there are two chances for rain today.

The first chance is this morning. Radar shows a large area of precipitation in the Finger Lakes, but much of this is actually not reaching the ground. There are some scattered showers within this area that are precipitating to ground level, so do not be surprised to see a little rain this morning.

By the early afternoon hours, this precipitation will drift southeast and dissipate. A little sun may come out, but for the most part, it will stay pretty cloudy.

By 4 or 5 pm, showers and a few thunderstorms will start to pop up once again. These will be scattered, so it will not be a steady rain this evening.

However, there should be enough showers throughout the evening and overnight hours that most areas should see at least some additional rain.

The rain is generally not expected to be heavy and severe weather is not expected.

Taste of Autumn

Thursday marks the start of the meteorological season of Autumn. The meteorological seasons are defined slightly different than the solar seasons we are all used to. This is mostly for record keeping and statistics, but defining the seasons this way also matches with the weather a bit better.

For the record, meteorological Winter starts December 1, Spring starts March 1 and Summer begins on June 1.

As if to prove a point, the weather will turn sharply cooler behind the cold front for the first few days of September. With clouds hanging tough on Thursday, temperatures will struggle to the mid 70s. A little bit of drizzle may be possible as well.

Skies will clear Thursday night, allowing for temperatures to drop for Friday morning. Expect lows in the mid and upper 50s Friday morning, with even cooler conditions Saturday and Sunday mornings.

Friday will turn out sunny with highs in the low and mid 70s. Saturday will be a bit warmer, with 80s starting to show up by Sunday.

Still Waiting For Hermine & Ian

The tropical wave I have been tracking since early last week, which became Tropical Depression Nine over the weekend, has still not developed into a tropical storm. Nor did the tropical depression that is now starting to pull away from the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

Both of these systems have been on the cusp of Tropical Storm status, but have not yet quite organized enough to be called Hermine. Both of these systems are expected to become tropical storms, possibly as soon as this afternoon. Whichever develops first will be Hermine, while the second will be Ian.

The Outer Banks system is of little concern at this point. The Gulf of Mexico system, however, should still cause at least some problems. It should make landfall in northern Florida sometime Thursday night as either a strong tropical storm or a weak hurricane.

By the later part of the weekend, this system’s track is quite uncertain and could do some interesting things. The current favored idea is for a northeast track into the Atlantic before stalling or drifting back west off the coast of New England.

Given how far out that still is, I do not really trust any of the projected tracks beyond its treck along the southeast coast late in the week. I will continue to monitor the system.