It was just another chilly Sunday in Syracuse. We managed only 58 degrees and that probably would have felt ok given the sun but with the darn wind gusting to 30 mph just added an early spring feel to the air. However, be thankful you weren’t in the Adirondacks Sunday. In Saranac Lake they experienced a quick drop in temperature from the 50s into the upper 30s in just 30 minutes Sunday afternoon and that changed rain to some snow. In fact, about an hour before sunset they reported a quarter mile visibility with heavy snow!
The good news for us is that our temperatures will be moderating. There will be some clouds from time to time but that is just a sign of the warmer air trying to return. Our temperatures won’t be back to normal but with less wind Monday mid 60s will feel pretty nice. If you have checked out the Planning Forecast over the last few days you can see that we aren’t forecasting many days with above normal temperatures. Here’s what’s going on.
The jet stream pattern for much of the upcoming week will be dominated by a ridge of high pressure that will stretch from the northern Atlantic across Greenland then into north central Canada. This is a variation of the ‘Greenland Block’ that we sometimes talk about. That is going to displace a large area of low pressure (polar vortex) along with cool air down into Eastern Canada. Over to the right I’ve included a map from last night’s GFS model run valid Thursday evening showing the set up in the upper atmosphere. The good news is this pattern will begin to break down starting this weekend. I don’t want to say we are totally done with cool weather after that (maybe a quick shot the end of next week?) but even before we can start dreaming about warm weather we have to get rid of that blocking pattern.
