Lake effect snow is weaker than early today and will be on the move this afternoon. It will likely continue to shift south then back north the rest of the day. In fact, the lake snow will briefly move into the Syracuse area early this afternoon. Luckily, snowfall rates won’t be as great as what was experienced over Oswego County this morning. Still, in the most persistent squalls there will be snowfall rates of 1” an hour with whiteout conditions.
Outside the lake effect, the other big story this afternoon will be the cold. Temperatures will only rise into the mid teens but that is not factoring the wind. We expect sustained winds of 10-25+ mph and that is going to make it feel like it is between 0 and 10 below. That wind is also going to cause quite a bit of blowing and drifting snow in and around the bands of snow leading to whiteout conditions.
The movement in the lake effect this afternoon is due to some small scale features in the atmosphere moving through central New York. Once those features move to our east, our winds look like they will lock back in on a west-northwest direction tonight which means heavier lake effect snow will hang out close to or just north of Syracuse. There will be an additional heavy accumulation of lake effect snow where ever this band sets up.
Drier air will try to move in for Wednesday so the lake effect probably won’t be as productive. It will also be the coldest day of this stretch of arctic air. Syracuse may not reach 10 above for a high temperature.
A separate system looks to bring widespread snow to the region Friday as cold air should remain in Central New York for the weekend.
