A boundary remains stretched across central New York this Thursday midday. Areas from Syracuse east are still in an arctic air mass. Meanwhile, over western New York, temperatures are in the 20s and that air is moving east. Along the dividing line between these two air masses there is some light snow. This snow will gradually shift east of Syracuse this afternoon.
The boundary will become a warm front and move east later today and our weather will be dominated by lake effect processes. The air aloft is cold and an increasing west-southwest wind will mean areas north of Syracuse stand the best chance of seeing accumulating snow tonight. While snow totals will be light in places like Fulton and Oswego, there could be up to a foot of snow up over the Tug Hill Plateau by tomorrow morning.
Our computer models still suggest that winds will remain rather brisk and westerly tomorrow. Consequently, any lake effect snow should remain well north of the Thruway until something and move it south. And that “something” is a cold front that is forecast to drop southeast late Friday into Saturday. Therefore, late Friday it’s possible snow showers may impact areas closer to the Thruway with a better threat Friday night and early Saturday morning. Depending on how far the cold front moves will have a large say in high temperatures Saturday. Early indications suggest that the warmest part of Saturday may in fact occur Saturday morning with falling temperatures thereafter. This would also mean, depending how the movement of the front, southern areas of CNY are significantly warmer than northern regions.
Starting later in the weekend, and especially next week, the seasonably cold air that is over us now will be ready to depart and head back north into Canada. That means we could be in for extended period of above normal temperatures as our air will be of Pacific Ocean origin as opposed to Canada. The stretch of milder air could last well into the extended forecast period.
