Merry Christmas Eve, Hudson Valley. Our fast start to the winter continues as we track another potential winter storm for the end of this week. So it’s time for our “First Look” at this system.
Summary:
– Snow develops late Friday afternoon
– Very cold… temperatures in the low to mid 20s.
– Snowfall rates of 1″ per hour possible
– Snow tapers Saturday morning
Forecast Details:
The Hudson Valley finds itself on the cold side of a semi stationary boundary between cold Canadian air and the unseasonable warmth being felt across most of the US. But we expect a wave of low pressure to push warm, moist air up over top of the cold Canadian air at the surface, which is a similar setup to the storm on Tuesday. This time we expect more widespread moisture, and much colder air in place. Temperatures for this storm are expected to be upper teens to low 20s for most of the region… which should mean a light and fluffy snow, as opposed to the heavy wet snow we saw on Tuesday.
Much like Tuesday, we’re expecting a relatively narrow band of precipitation, along that warm front boundary. The heaviest precipitation appears likely to extend from Lake Ontario toward NYC… taking it through portions of the Hudson Valley. Like we saw on Tuesday, it’s possible for some locations to see extended periods of heavier snow, due to unpredictable intense bands of heavier snow developing. This could lead to some localized big surprises, just ask our viewers in Orange and Sullivan counties about what happened on Tuesday.
Snow Accumulations:
Early thoughts on this system are a widespread 5 to 10 inches of snow. We have good agreement on all computer guidance that SE NY and the Hudson Valley should see some of the heavier precipitation amounts with this system. We’ll monitor this closely, but we wouldn’t be surprised if someone gets a foot of snow from this system.
This is our 1st look at this system, we’ll issue our Preliminary Forecast on Christmas Day, followed by our Final Forecast by Friday morning. Merry Christmas!