Temperatures on the Rise
High pressure over the Southern Appalachians will drift eastward today as low pressure strengthens over the Upper Midwest.
The high will be our dominating influence for the daytime hours today, keeping the weather tranquil.
Winds today will vary some but will generally be from a westerly direction at light speeds. These winds will not have much impact on our temperature, one way or the other.
Abundant sunshine will be with us most of the day until some thin clouds start to sneak in from the west this afternoon.
High temperatures today will add a degree or two onto yesterday, with most places in the low 60s and a few pockets reaching the mid 60s.
Temperatures will drop back to near 50 this evening, but southwest winds will develop and strengthen between the high and the low. This will push temperatures upward during the overnight, with mid and upper 50s, and even a few low 60s by dawn Thursday.
Wind gusts overnight will be between 25-35 mph, with the strongest gusts in the higher elevations south of Syracuse and west of Canandaigua Lake
Gusts of 30-40 mph will become more widespread once the sun rises on Thursday. The wind will team up with more sunshine to push temperatures well into the 70s.
During the mid to late afternoon, a sharp cold front will come through. Winds will suddenly turn to the west-northwest and temperatures will drop 15-20 degrees. There will be clouds along the front, but any rain should lag well behind the front.
A Shot of Cold…Briefly
Rain showers will eventually overspread the Finger Lakes Thursday evening. Much of the rain will be light.
The front will stall out and start to dissipate to our east. This will keep areas of showers in our region for Friday, but rainfall amounts do not look impressive.
Friday will otherwise be cloudy and cool with very light winds. Highs will be around 50 degrees, only a small rise from morning lows in the upper 40s.
Low pressure will develop along the East Coast Friday night and push north into New England on Saturday.
Some additional rain showers on the fringe edge of this system will be possible Friday night, mostly for areas east of Cayuga Lake. These may linger into Saturday morning, but again, rainfall amounts look minimal.
At this point, it seems very unlikely that this system will track further west, despite several of the European Ensemble members still showing moderate rainfall. All in all, from Thursday night through Saturday, many areas will be lucky to see even a quarter-inch of rainfall.
Saturday will eventually have increasing sunshine, which will help temperatures into the low 50s. Sunday looks to have a mix of sun and clouds and highs pushing back into the 60s.
Both Saturday and Sunday morning look cold, with widespread 30s across much of the region. Frost and possibly freeze conditions will be expected, especially through the Southern Tier. However, with the growing season already considered over in those areas, Frost Advisories will not be issued.
Confidence is rising in a warm week next week with highs in the 60s and possibly 70s. Rainfall, however, may be hard to come by and will not amount to anything meaningful even if it does arrive.
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Rebecca S.
This is the first time I’ve seen reference to “European Ensemble members.” Sounds like an orchestral group. Who/what are you talking about???
Meteorologist Drew Montreuil
Hi Rebecca! I mention this from time to time, so I am glad you asked for more clarification. Basically, the European is (on average) the most reliable weather model we have. A model ensemble is where the model is adjusted slightly in different ways and run over and over again. For the Euro Ensembles, there are 51 variations run. Doing this gives a range of possible outcomes (though it is possible for all 51 members to be wrong, too!). So, if I see most (let’s say over 45) of the members all saying pretty much the same thing, confidence is higher in that solution. But if there is just chaos and little to no consistency, that is a signal that confidence is lower and other tools need to be used.
For the rain amounts, there is still a pretty large range among the ensemble members, but the amounts showing on the highest members have been decreasing, and the number of members showing light amounts has been increasing. This confirms what I see elsewhere that we will probably not see much from this, and my “quarter-inch” proclamation in this post is lower than the average of the ensembles.