Scattered storms possible Tuesday in the Finger Lakes

Uncertain Storm Evolution

Morning clouds and precipitation have made the atmosphere a mess over the Finger Lakes, complicating the forecast for the rest of today.

This is not an unusual occurrence in our region and our thunderstorm days are often complicated.

Clouds and some showers and thunderstorms this morning are moving through the Finger Lakes out ahead of the main cold front. Some of this rain is weakening. Some is intensifying. A few places will see some breaks in the clouds while others will remain overcast.

This muddles the picture because it will limit the amount of heating that can take place and the forecast then becomes a guessing game of whether the atmosphere can overcome this obstacle or not. The morning rain can also leave behind subtle wind shifts that can act as triggers for storms later in the day. Computer models are very limited in their ability to resolve these subtleties.

Most of the time, showers and some thunderstorms do manage to develop, but generally, the severe potential is limited. I expect that to be the case again today.

Expect the scattered showers and storms to continue from early this morning into the midday hours. A break in the presence of rain in the region should exist for an hour or two before the new activity starts to fire up around 2 or 3 pm.

Scattered showers and storms will then continue until about 6 or 7 pm, after which they will begin to taper off to mere showers. Many areas will not see a thunderstorm today. One or two may see a severe storm with frequent lightning and strong winds.

Continue to monitor the radar today if you have outdoor plans and stick with Finger Lakes Weather for any pertinent updates. Unfortunately, I will not be able to live blog today’s event. I will post updates here as necessary though.

We will go through this whole scenario again tomorrow. Morning showers and clouds are likely, followed by a chance for some afternoon thunderstorms.

The focus for thunderstorms on Wednesday seems to be over the Southern Tier and Southern Finger Lakes as the weakening frontal boundary sags south.

Once again, a few storms could get robust, but the entire evolution is dependent on how the morning evolves.

Radar Problem

After successfully getting the radar back to its old style, a new bug has popped up.

Google is saying the maps cannot load properly and the background is getting greyed out. However, you can still see the towns and locations.

Just dismiss the pop-up notification and continue to use the radar as you normally would. I am working on a new solution to this problem.

All of these radar problems have originated with Google’s decision to begin charging fees for the use of Google map backgrounds.