A cold front stretches from the upper Great Lakes south to just west of Chicago this evening. This front is pressing east and will impact our weather for tomorrow. Ahead of the cold front, west to southwest winds will import warmer air into Central New York. Thus, we think highs should reach the middle 80s. With warm and humid air in place, the cold front will likely trigger scattered showers and thunderstorms tomorrow, especially during the afternoon. Less humid air arrives behind the front for Friday although it looks like temperatures will remain a bit above normal.
The picture is becoming a bit clearer for the weekend. For starters, Saturday looks to be the wetter of the two weekend days. We are still watching for a storm in the upper atmosphere to drop into the Ohio Valley to start the weekend. This will spin up an area of low pressure down at the ground that will travel into the Northeast by late Saturday causing showers and thunderstorms.
Our biggest question mark for the upcoming weekend was how quickly the storm in the upper atmosphere would depart. The trends we see from our computer model now lean toward a faster, or more progressive, system. That has a couple of implications on our weather for the end of the weekend. First, we expect a quick shot of cooler air for Sunday and Monday. It may be a struggle to reach 70 degrees both of those days. Secondly, drier air will start to move in faster so our chances for showers will drop compared to Saturday. However, with the cooler air coming over Lake Ontario we are still at risk for some lake effect showers Sunday and perhaps Monday.
