Saturday night snow, sleet details

Winter Weather Expectations

A quick moving but widespread winter weather event will move through the Finger Lakes tonight.

Widespread snow and sleet will fall for most of the nighttime hours, making travel difficult this evening into Sunday morning.

Here is a quick look at the details you need to know:

Timing:

Precipitation will move from southwest to northeast, taking less than two hours to spread across the entire region. This is most likely to occur between 6-8 PM tonight. Precipitation will be heavy from the start.

After midnight, the precipitation will decrease in intensity, especially across the southern half of the region. Parts of the Southern Tier may even get into the dry slot and see precipitation taper to just scattered flurries.

The steady precipitation will move out of the region between 6-8 AM on Sunday. However, scattered snow showers and some pockets of steadier bouts of light snow will persist into the midday. Additional snow showers off Lake Ontario will be possible during the latter afternoon and Sunday evening.

Precipitation Types:

As I mentioned mid-week, the weather models tend to dive too far south about 3 days before an event, then slowly come back north as the event draws closer. This is exactly what has happened, with the snow-sleet line coming further north with every update.

It is also my experience that the models never quite come far enough north with the sleet.

So, while the models now show sleet in the Southern Tier, it is my feeling that most areas south of a roughly Dansville-Penn Yan-Cortland line will see at least some sleet mixing in, and significant sleet is likely south of the southern tips of Cayuga and Seneca Lake.

Across the northern half of the region, there still may be some brief periods of sleet mixing in, but snow should be the dominant precipitation type.

Sleet will mainly be present during the evening hours. By midnight, colder air will build in as the low pressure center passes east, turning all precipitation to snow for the overnight.

Snow and Sleet Amounts:

The presence of sleet can drastically reduce snow amounts. Therefore, for areas south of the southern tips of Cayuga and Seneca Lake, I am expecting 1-4 inches of snow and sleet.

For the remainder of Steuben, Schuyler, Tompkins, and Cortland counties, amounts will be on the order of 2-4 inches.

To the north, there will be a split between east and west. Cayuga and Onondaga counties will have the best chance of seeing 4-6 inches. Further west, 3-5 inches will be more common.

The hilly terrain between Syracuse and Cortland stands the best shot at seeing slightly more than 6 inches.

All of these amounts are through early Sunday morning. Additional snow on Sunday should be limited to around an inch, maybe two.

As always, amounts may vary rather significantly over small distances, especially due to local topography close to the snow-sleet line.

Other Factors:

Low pressure will likely pass nearly overhead, which will actually keep winds at bay throughout the night. In fact, winds may even be completely calm at times as the center of circulation passes overhead.

Northwest winds behind the low will kick up a bit on Sunday with speeds to 15 mph and gusts to 30 mph. The strongest winds will be in the morning and early afternoon.

Temperatures will mainly hold steady in the mid 20s through the overnight and into Sunday morning. Higher elevations may be slightly cooler.

Sunday will see some warming despite the northwest winds with low 30s in lower elevations and upper 20s in the hills.

My next blog post will be the regularly scheduled update Monday morning. Nonetheless, I will greatly appreciate any reports you can send me Sunday morning so I can continue to fine tune my understanding of the south-bias in the models. Thank you in advance!

For more information on next week’s weather, please see Friday’s blog post.

More Information:

» Finger Lakes Weather Radar

» Finger Lakes Weather Radar

» Zip Code Forecasts

» Your Forecast

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