Sunshine increases Tuesday ahead of warm-up

Pleasant Tuesday

The weather will be rather tame on Tuesday with a couple morning flurries followed by increasingly sunny skies.

A small area of snow showers will drop south across the Finger Lakes during the first part of this morning.

This snow will be light and should not put down more than a coating of accumulation. Some areas may not even see any snow at all.

Slightly cooler air will seep into the region on west-northwest winds today. The cooler air will be offset by increasing amounts of sunshine that will persist for the remainder of the day.

As a result, temperatures will not change much today. Most areas are starting near or just about 30 degrees and should remain there until later this afternoon.

The wind will be a bit gusty with a few places seeing winds reach 30 mph. That will result in low and mid 20s for wind chills this afternoon.

Cool Overnight, Then Warming Up

The wind will drop overnight and skies will remain clear. This will result in some cool temperatures overnight, but nothing like the bitter cold of recent weeks.

Most areas will drop into the teens overnight. Valley locations across the Southern Tier may slide all the way back into the single digits. No sub-zero temperatures are expected though.

Skies will start out sunny Wednesday morning as winds begin to increase from the south.

This will usher in warmer air with highs Wednesday afternoon pushing or exceeding 40 degrees for many areas.

Clouds will be on the increase as a few rain showers pass through during the evening and Wednesday night.

Thursday looks dry at this time and very warm with temperatures pushing into the upper 40s and low 50s.

Late Week Storm Systems

The weather for Friday and Saturday will get more active as a pair of storm systems impact the area.

On Friday, temperatures will remain very warm, with most areas at least in the mid to upper 40s.

An area of rain is expected to move north from the Mid-Atlantic late Thursday night into Friday morning.

There is some potential for a band of heavier rain to set up with rainfall amounts approaching an inch locally.

The position of this heavier rain is uncertain, but there is at least some possibility it could be in the Finger Lakes area.

Most of the area has less than an inch of water locked up in the snow cover, so flooding is not a major concern at this time. Localized flooding from ice jams, however, could be a concern.

The second system will be hot on the first one’s heels as it moves up through the Ohio Valley.

The path of this system is going to have a significant impact on our weather and remains very uncertain. Rain, snow, or even significant icing are all possibilities for Saturday.

It is much too uncertain to pinpoint this weekend’s forecast at this point, so be wary of oversimplified forecasts that do not express the uncertainty at this point.