Nor’easter creeps west, still set to mostly miss Finger Lakes

Nailing Down the Nor’easter

A developing storm system along the East Coast will develop into a nor’easter on Wednesday, just clipping the far eastern reaches of the Finger Lakes.

The weather set up is complicated by a second low pressure that will be drifting through the Great Lakes. Computer models are in decent agreement on how this will all unfold, except for the European model, which continues to hang further east.

While I usually stick close to the European model, there are enough signals, in my opinion, to not completely buy into it. At least some credit should be given to the idea of an expansion of the snow into Central New York and the eastern Finger Lakes.

The Euro itself has also been trending further and further west, coming into closer agreement with the other models.

I am expecting some widespread light snow to develop late Wednesday morning and continue into the early evening as the nor’easter develops and interacts with the Great Lakes low.

For most of the Finger Lakes, this will only produce a coating to an inch. However, a couple of inches will be possible from Elmira to Ithaca to Syracuse, with quickly increasing totals to the east. Norwich, in Chenango County right on the edge of the above map, could easily see 8 or more inches.

The difference between moderate accumulations and light accumulations will be small, so the forecast confidence is only medium.

However, I do not expect a push much further west with the higher snow totals. If anything, I feel the higher amounts would end up further east.

This will be a great test case to see just how well the European handles this storm compared to some of the other models.

Additional light snow will fall Wednesday evening and into Thursday and especially Friday.

More updates Wednesday morning before 8 am.