There are always healthy debate and give and take in the weather office when we write up the forecast you see on the air or on the internet. This time of year, in particular, (April into May) can be one of the toughest times for forecasting as systems are moving quick and small changes in tracks can have huge impacts in what our weather is like. One of those dilemmas this week focused on Wednesday night’s forecast.
The NAM and GFS models yesterday latched onto a developing area of low pressure coming out of the southern Plains bringing it close to Syracuse Wednesday night with some steady rain. I was a bit hesitant at Noon yesterday to jump on this partly from what I saw on the European model early in the day. It had a weaker low farther to the east Wednesday night suggesting just showers and I had to give that model at least some credence. It had the best handle on Tuesday’s weather, keeping most of the showers that day to the east of Syracuse.
The new model runs came in overnight and they are coming into better agreement. When forecasting you like to see that happen. Most notable is the European, which now takes low pressure across northeast Pennsylvania and the Catskills. That’s now close enough to Syracuse to give us the confidence to go with some steady (perhaps heavy) rain tonight. It looks like a widespread half an inch to an inch of rain tonight is a good bet. There could be some isolated higher totals.
The low moves to our northeast early Thursday so while it will still be a damp day, the rainfall Thursday will be lighter and more intermittent.
This unsettled pattern looks like it will last into the weekend and will be slower to depart the Northeast so we’ve held onto the showers now into Mother’s Day. There is some good news on the horizon. If we can manage through this period of showery weather then next few days there are signs of a real warm up mid to late next week. I don’t want to get tied down to specific numbers yet but temperatures well up into the 70s could be in our future.
