After a stretch of over 90 days that’s been exceptionally dry across the Hudson Valley, we’re tracking a storm system for late this week that could bring more rain in 2 days than we’ve seen in 2 or 3 months.
Things have been exceptionally dry over the past several months. The result being the majority of the Hudson Valley falling into a state of moderate to severe drought.
Most of the Hudson Valley has not seen more than 1 or 2 inches of rain across the last 90 days… which is less than 10% of what we would expect in that period. In fact over the last 30 days… we’ve seen 0.1 to 0.5 inches of rain, which is maybe 10% of average!
So it’s outstanding news that we’re finally seeing a pattern change. The persistent east coast ridge of high pressure that has been in place for 2 or 3 months now… will push into the Atlantic Ocean, and a strong upper level low pressure will push into the Great Lakes by Wednesday night, setting the stage for a large area of rain to develop from the Great Lakes to the Mid Atlantic coast.
A period of soaking rain is likely from Wednesday night into Thursday afternoon. During that time, a half inch to an inch of rain could fall. But then, the upper level low pressure moves so slowly, that the northeast likely remains unsettled into Friday and Saturday. The ULL or upper level low will spin over the Northeast for a couple days… resulting in scattered areas of rain (and possibly areas of wet snow). For now… we’re focusing on the rainfall that is extremely needed for our area…
1 to 2 inches of rain would be almost as much rain as we’ve seen in 90 days… over the course of 3 days or so. This would be GREAT news!! And yes… we’re going to watch for the potential for some areas of wet snow heading into the weekend (mostly in the higher elevations)… but the strong upper level low will bring cold air along with it… so we can’t rule out the potential. But ANY precipitation is welcome at this time, so this is great news that we’ll be focusing on through the week.
Have a great start to your work week!