Smoky Skies
A smoke plume from wildfires over central Canada continues to sit over the Finger Lakes and surrounding regions.
Air Quality Alerts are in effect again today with Air Quality Index values remaining in the same general range as yesterday. Most places will straddle the delineation between the Orange and Red classifications, which are considered unhealthy for sensitive groups and unhealthy for all, respectively.
With light winds in the atmosphere, there will probably be little change in the air quality today or tonight with the smoke plume remaining parked over the area.
Besides the smoke, some occasional batches of clouds will drift through the area today as well. A stray shower later this afternoon cannot be totally ruled out, but anything that falls should be very isolated, brief, and insignificant.
Temperatures will be held back a bit by the smoke, with highs mainly in the low 80s with pockets of mid 80s. Some higher elevations will be near or just under 80 degrees.
A light southerly flow will become established tonight but may not have much impact on our smoky skies right away.
Air quality on Wednesday will likely be in a similar range to today, though perhaps with very slight improvements.
Rain will be more likely tomorrow as some showers and storms pop up in the afternoon. These will still be isolated to scattered, so many areas will stay dry. The northern half of the region is slightly more likely to see rain than areas further south.
Temperatures will again mainly be in the low 80s with both some warmer and cooler pockets possible.
Steady Weather Conditions
Smoke models only go out about 48 hours, but extrapolating the end of the most recent model runs, I suspect that smoke may well continue into at least Thursday, if not Friday and beyond.
High pressure will be in control of the weather, which leads both to light winds in the atmosphere and a sinking motion in the atmosphere that helps trap pollutants such as smoke particles near the surface.
The dominating high pressure system overhead will gradually slide east out over the Atlantic by the weekend. Hopefully by then, southerly winds will be strong enough and persistent enough to remove the smoke plume from our area.
Uncertainty in the smoke is high beyond Thursday, and subtle changes could have significant impacts on the location and structure of the smoke plume.
Smoke will be the primary concern late in the week, outside of a need for rain in some areas. Dry weather is expected through the late week and weekend periods with skies a mix of sun and clouds.
Temperatures will gradually creep up, though the presence of smoke may reduce the amount of increase slightly.
Thursday should see highs in the low 80s, while Friday and especially Saturday reach the mid 80s. Upper 80s with pockets near 90 are possible by Sunday, with many areas near or slightly above 90 degrees by Monday.
Humidity levels will not increase as much as the temperature, with tolerable dewpoints topping out in the lower half of the 60s persisting through the weekend.
Temperatures will remain warm to hot through the first half of next week, and humidity will increase as well. Rain chances will increase, especially toward the middle of the week.
More Information:
» Finger Lakes Weather Radar
» Zip Code Forecasts
» Get the FLX Weather Mobile App
This graphic represents an average over the entire Finger Lakes region. Localized variations should be expected.
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