Things begin to get very interesting for Monday (Dyngus Day) and Tuesday. Right now, the only thing that’s anything close to being certain is the temperature, which will be similar to Sunday’s, in the mid-60s.

The National Weather Service Offices in Buffalo and State College have issued RED FLAG WARNINGS for the entire Twin Tiers region, due to high temperatures, dry air and gusty winds. This indicates a very favorable environment for forest fires, which can spread rapidly in these conditions and quickly become wildfires.

Saturday: Mostly sunny skies, continued very warm. Afternoon highs in the upper 70s. Southerly winds of approximately 10-20 mph. A few clouds Saturday night.

Easter Sunday: Mix of clouds and sun, with a negligible chance of very light showers. Early morning lows around 40. Noontime high temperatures in the mid-60s.

Dyngus Day (Monday): Cloudy, with a 50-50 chance of rain showers. Early morning lows in the low to mid-40s. Afternoon highs in the mid-60s. Noticeable southwesterly wind of approximately 20 m.p.h.

Tuesday through Friday: This is a very difficult period to forecast in the field of precipitation. The MRF MOS perturbations are all calling for approximately 50-50 chances of precipitation all week, and none are forecasting for more than a tenth of an inch for the whole time period. The GFS graphics are suggesting that the Twin Tiers will experience quite a few near misses during that time. Temperatures appear to be a bit more clear cut– as the jet stream goes into a zonal pattern, high temperatures will likely moderate into the mid-50s. (I don’t think MOS’s normalizing bias is at play, since these temperatures will begin on Tuesday.)

Long range: The CPC is placing the Twin Tiers in a bracket for normal temperatures from April 8 through 16. For precipitation,  the CPC places the region in an “above normal” region for April 8-12 but in “below normal” for April 10-16. Note that these are statistical probabilities and not necessarily what is sure to happen.

All in all, it is going to be  a nice Easter weekend, so go out and enjoy.

~J.M. Fuller

Well, if you’re going to partake in wearin’ o’ the green today, you could very well be able to get away with short sleeves. A broad and sprawling surface high-pressure mass is sitting across a swath of the country stretching from the East Coast to the Rocky Mountains, and that means dry, fair weather for the next few days. Now that the snow has cleared off the ground and the amount of daylight has increased (the vernal equinox comes this Saturday), the old rule of thumb about the 850-mb temperature plus 13 C comes back into play. Right now that number sits at 3 C, which translates to 16 C or 61 F. Given that the “normal” high for this time of year is in the low 40s, we’re doing well. The question is, will it last? For the next few days, yes, though I can’t rule out our usual late-March snows yet.

Wednesday: Sunny and warm. High temperatures this afternoon ranging from the upper 50s to about 60.

Thursday: Low temperatures Thursday in the low 30s. Continued sunny, marginally cooler. Afternoon high temperatures in the mid-to-upper 50s.

Friday: Clouds move in overnight heading into Friday, resulting in warmer lows (upper 30s to around 40). Partly cloudy for Friday, with an afternoon high in the low 50s.

Astronomical spring comes this Saturday afternoon… more details then in the weekend outlook.

To put this weekend’s forecast in a nutshell, a low pressure mass has formed off the east coast around Virginia. The prevailing jet stream is southerly and will push much of the rain (as scattered as it is) into the area from the south. The Appalachians will help break some of that up, but we’re still going to see some rain. As for temperatures, expect them to be significantly cooler, into the low to mid-40s (though this is slightly warmer than our average of 40), due to the shifting low pressure system now bringing cooler easterly winds as opposed to the warm southwesterlies we were receiving before.

Saturday: Rain, approximately a half-inch possible. Early highs in the mid-40s, holding steady throughout the day. Noticeable gusty winds in the range of 20-25 mph, from the east to northeast.

Sunday: Low temperatures bottoming in the mid-30s Sunday morning, with another half inch of rain possible. A possibility of some mixed snowflakes remains for the overnight and early morning hours, but will not be enough to accumulate considering the waterlogged ground. During the day, all precipitation will be rain, and will begin to dissipate. A quarter inch of rain is possible. Highs in the low 40s.

Monday: Any scattered precipitation remaining will move out Monday morning. Mostly cloudy skies, with a few breaks of sun. Low temperatures in the low 30s. Afternoon highs in the upper 40s.

While the warm temperatures (in fact, even warmer than the past couple of days) will in fact stay around for a while, the dry and sunny skies we’ve been used to will not. A very slow moving low-pressure system is moving its way northeastward along the Great Plains, and to its east is a warm front. This warm front is bringing with it strong warm-air advection, which indicates lift, in turn indicating rain. The fact that many places still have a large snow pack from the February storms is going to make flooding an issue; though much of that has melted or sublimated away in the past few days, there is still a significant pack of several inches remaining, particularly on shaded surfaces and north-facing slopes. I suspect that the rain is going to melt most of that away in the next couple of days. Once that icy cover is gone, it will reduce inhibition and create the potential for warmer long-term temperatures.

Speaking of which… while I know that my colleague Andrew insists it’s going to reach the 60-degree mark where he’s at, I’m not very convinced of that yet for down in these parts. The MOS products are in consensus that it will be in the mid-50s for the entire four-county forecast area for both today and tomorrow. The 12Z weather balloons haven’t gone up yet, so I’ll need to take a look at them when their numbers come in and make revisions. Still, mid-50s is well above our typical average of 39, and there’s no way I’m going to be complaining about that.

To be continued…

~JMF

Over the next two days, two low pressure systems– one a Miller Type A cyclone that’s moving its way into New York City, the other a weaker land-based low coming over the Appalachians– are going to converge over upstate New York and the Twin Tiers. The question is this: what does this mean for residents of the Western Twin Tiers? Well, believe it or not, not much. We will get some snow, but according to virtually all of the models, the epic snowstorm is going to miss us.

Part of the issue is that we are under an upper-level low pressure system with the jets steering everything to our north. Over the next few days, this will shift to a relatively rare easterly jet, but again, according to the models, any body of precipitation is going to hit the Catskills and Adirondacks, hitting them with the major snow and dying out by the time it reaches us in the upper Appalachians. The metropolitan Buffalo-Rochester-Syracuse corridor, however, will largely be unprotected since the storm will move straight up the Mohawk Valley.

So, how much snow will we here in the Twin Tiers get? Well, despite the reports in the major metros suggesting 12 to 24 inches, I think that’s an estimate on the high side. A minimum of 6 inches is likely, but I don’t see us getting any more than 12 inches. The exception is Allegany County, where one of the models is projecting a piece of the heavy snow to clip the county.

The snow will reach us Thursday night and Friday.

As for winds and high temperatures, winds shouldn’t reach more than about 15 mph. Temperatures will likely be in the mid-to-upper 20s for most of the Twin Tiers area for both today and tomorrow, with low temperatures tomorrow morning in the low 20s.

Now, as for this week:

A low pressure system sitting off the East Coast is expected to nudge its way northeastward and establish itself more or less as a permanent feature east of Nova Scotia this week. The result will be a weak flow of northerly wind (exacerbated by a stationary surface high over the Great Plains) and wraparound moisture that will affect us most of the week. The models are trying to paint a little bit of snowfall all week. There is currently very little upper-level cloud cover (almost all of it low, thin stratus) so the prospect of a lot of snow over the next few days is slim. The threat of lake effect this time around is likely to be marginal, since 925-mb temps are currently right around -8 C and 850-mb temps are -12 C. This is slightly under what would be needed for a pure lake effect event. So, expect in general, slightly below-average** temperatures and scattered snow showers all week.

A Winter Weather Advisory is in effect for Northern Pennsylvania, though it is expected to expire in the coming hours.

With that in mind…

Tuesday: Widely scattered snow showers today and tonight; otherwise, mostly cloudy. High temperatures this afternoon in the upper 20s.

Wednesday: Widely scattered snow showers Wednesday and Wednesday night; otherwise, mostly cloudy. Low temperatures in the upper teens for Wednesday morning. Highs Wednesday afternoon in the upper 20s.

Thursday and Friday: Scattered snow showers… you get the picture.

What the heck does it take to get a positive NAO around here, anyway?

More in the Weekend Outlook… now being issued SATURDAY mornings instead of Friday. In addition, “This Week in the Twin Tiers” has moved to Tuesday. I did this because I feel there’s a lack of quality weekend forecasting in this area, and judging by how hard it has been for me to find work, it seems like the TV people want to keep it that way (diversity over accuracy, I guess). So, I’ll do it myself.

*About those averages… keep in mind that we had very warm temperatures back in the 1990s which skewed many of these winter averages upward. So, slightly below-average is probably closer to a true normal than the 30-year average.

~JMF

We’re dealing right now with a very quiet, dull weather pattern over the Great Lakes/North Appalachia region right now, with cloudy skies and not much activity as far as synoptic-scale features go. That’s the way it’s likely to stay, at least for today. Cloud cover will effectively keep our low temperatures from dropping as low as they have been a few nights this week.

Saturday: Cloudy skies. Afternoon highs in the mid-20s. Clouds continue into Saturday night.

On Sunday, NWS guidance is trying to paint in some weak snow showers over the windward side of the Appalachians. This won’t be all that impressive, resulting in a few flakes if anything, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see nothing at all. With Lake Erie now nearly frozen over, the lake effect machine will be effectively cut off in our area.

Sunday: Mostly cloudy, with a few very scattered and light snow flurries. Early morning lows in the mid-teens. Highs in the mid-20s.

Some ridging begins to build in for Monday, clearing out whatever snow showers there are in the area. However, it will not clear out the clouds.

Monday (Presidents’ Day): Cloudy skies. Lows in the mid-teens. Highs in the mid-20s.

All in all, a very boring forecast.

Below is a new feature to the Weather Blog, but in return a longstanding part of my other site: a ski report for the Twin Tiers.

The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Weather Advisory for the Western Southern Tier and Northern Pennsylvania. A Winter Storm WARNING is in effect for all counties south of the Twin Tiers.

However, the Twin Tiers need their forecast for the week, and that’s why I’m here. Unlike the last snowstorm that just grazed the area, this one appears to be headed right for us. We have a surface low coming right across the Appalachians, another low sweeping down the plains and looking like it will combine with the Appalachian low, and a high pressure bubble just to the east of these two that will prevent a “type B hop” toward the East Coast. (Type B refers to the direction of a snowstorm like this: A goes around the Appalachians from the south, B goes across the Appalachians by generating a cyclone to the east of the original and causing the original to disappear, and C goes around the Appalachians from the north; C is the one that usually affects us, and that’s what this one’s turning out to be.)

The roles, as it turns out, are going to be a bit reversed from last weekend’s storm: the major city corridors are likely going to get less than the last one (but still nothing to sneeze at) while we brace for the worst. The good news is that with storms coming up across the Appalachians, it forces a lot of the heaviest snow out of the system through orographic lift down in West Virginia and deep in coal territory, well before it reaches us. Reading the NWS discussion, they’re only calling for 2 to 4 inches. That’s a stretch I think, and I think it’s based on the development of a type B situation. I don’t think it will happen. I will be bolder and call for at least 6 inches.

After the storm passes, it will establish a northwesterly flow over the area, bringing colder than average temperatures, but seasonably cold (low-to-mid 20s for highs, as opposed to the average of 29).

Tuesday:
Snowfall begins in the afternoon. Afternoon highs in the upper 20s. Easterly wind becoming stronger as the day progresses. Tuesday night, snow.

Wednesday:
Snow continues. Early morning low in the upper teens. Highs in the mid-20s.

Thursday:
Snow begins to dissipate. Colder. Early morning lows in the mid-teens. Highs in the low 20s. Northwesterly wind.

Friday:
A mix of sun and clouds. Early morning low in the upper single digits. High temperature in the low to mid 20s.

More in the Weekend Outlook.

~JMF

Friday: Snow, progressing from south to north over the course of Friday afternoon. High around 30. Snow continues Friday night. Variable winds.

Saturday: Snow continues up until the afternoon. Early lows in the low teens. Highs in the mid-20s. Mostly clear skies on Saturday night. Variable winds shifting northwest.

Sunday: A cold start, with early morning lows in the single digits. High temperature about 20. Northwest winds.

Monday: Mix of sun and clouds. A few scattered snow showers in the northern portions of the region. High temperatures in the low-to-middle 20s. Monday night, continuing partial cloudiness. Low temperatures will reach into the mid-teens for Tuesday morning, around 10 in the mountainous areas. Winds will increase through the day and into the night to about 20 mph.

Tuesday, a currently weak, but likely to strengthen, low-pressure trough that is sitting just east of the Rocky Mountains today will begin to progress into the area, bringing a general snowfall. On Tuesday, we will be in the “warm sector” of the low pressure system, which will bring our temperatures back up toward average (average high for this time of year is 29).

Tuesday: General light snowfall.  High temperature around 30. Low temperature Tuesday night in the low 20s.

Wednesday: General light snowfall ends in the afternoon. High temperature around 30. Clearing skies for Wednesday night, with temperatures dropping into the mid-teens.

High pressure builds into the area for Thursday and Friday, giving us seasonable dry weather. Wind flow and lake-atmosphere lapse rates do not appear favorable for lake effect at this time.

Thursday: Partly sunny. High 30. Low in the mid-to-upper teens.

Friday: Partly sunny. High 30.

More in the weekend outlook on Friday.

And for the record…  I’d be willing to bet the groundhogs in the area don’t see their shadow on Tuesday, ergo predicting an early spring.