Rochester 10/15 — Shoveable Snow South of Thruway
A system riding up the eastern seaboard will spread Atlantic moisture northwestward into Central and Western New York later this afternoon and tonight. With plenty of cold air already in place, some locations south of Rochester in the hills will see accumulating wet snow, but anything that does fall in Monroe County will be minor and light.
Another chilly day already in progress for our Thursday. Skies will remain cloudy for the remainder of the day with temperatures hardly breaking 40 degrees. Earlier today, I saw a few flurries falling while I was at work and we may see a few more as the afternoon wears on.
As we approach tonight, a large area of rain will progress northward towards Western New York. There is no question that counties along the PA boarder will get in on this, but I don’t think it will make it north of the Thruway. For those locations in the Southern Tier, especially in higher elevations, they can expect to see a few inches if slushy wet snow by morning. Up here in Monroe County, if a stray shower does make it here, it should remain all rain, but you may see a wet flake or two mixed in.
One more thing to note, the radar on the right side of the page maybe a bit misleading. A large portion of the green (rain) or light blues (snow) is not hitting the ground. It’s raining or snowing aloft, but it’s evaporating before reaching the surface. We label that as “virga” in meteorology.
October 15th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Yeah, that tends to happen quite a bit, especially in the fall, that radar picks up a lot of stuff that isn’t really making it to the ground.
A good way to tell is if you have access to the multiple levels of radar (most composites, such as the one on the main page, use only the level nearest to the ground), if the higher levels have wider areas of reflectivity, then that’s virga. Sometimes you’ll see it as a slightly bow-shaped reflectivity around a single radar site.
We’ve got snain here in Little Valley.
October 16th, 2009 at 10:15 am
What I have noticed too with virga is that the returns on the radar often disappear as they approach the location of the radar which illustrates well how the radar scans higher up the further away the location is from the site.
I find it useful determining whether or not a line of showers is reaching the ground in Southern Ontario as they move west into my viewing area.