As we look to our Thursday weather… (yes, it’s Thursday… not Wednesday, or Tuesday…. but Thursday)… the weather looks rather quiet. For anyone wondering what we’re talking about, we started the Wednesday Discussion saying our Tuesday looks cold and blustery… lol. Thanks to Martin Luther King Jr. day, I’m all crossed up with regard to what day it is…
But it is indeed Thursday… and our Thursday weather looks chilly and quiet. A weak wave of energy could touch off a few flurries in the afternoon, especially in the Catskills.
A few snow flurries or snow showers are possible around mid day, mainly in the Catskills and upper Hudson Valley. That weak disturbance blows through, and we have a mix of clouds and sun for the afternoon hours… highs in the mid to upper 30s. Wind chills will feel like the 20s, thanks to a persistent westerly breeze. As we push into Friday, things will look similar to Thursday in many ways. Another weak wave of energy will swing through the region, and shift our winds out of the NW once more. Along with that shift, will come a chance of scattered snow flurries and snow showers in the afternoon on Friday. A dusting or two can’t be ruled out with the passage of that front.
The partly cloudy skies will be with us through the weekend, and then our focus turns to Monday and Tuesday of next week. The storm track has been quiet, but we will finally see another wave of low pressure push into the midwest, and move toward the eastern states to start next week.
Futurecast Weather Map : Sunday Night through Tuesday Afternoon
The scenario displayed here is the one that would impact us most significantly. It’s important to note however, that the models are very uncertain as to how this will play out. The European, Canadian (shown above), and American GFS models… all show different variations of the same thing. A low pressure pushes east Sunday night into Monday, and moves off the east coast by Tuesday afternoon. The trouble is… a fairly significant trough over the eastern US will see a weak ridge move into the Ohio Valley. The exact location and storm track that will result, could generate a moderate snowfall anywhere from Detroit and lower Canada, through NYS and the Hudson Valley, southward through Washington DC and Philadelphia. Some guidance says we get hit… others say southern Canada… and others still say Washington DC. As a result, we’ll be monitoring the situation very closely.
Beyond this system… another system appears possible for late next week. And another still for the start of February. So the storm track looks quite a bit more active as we close out the month of January. While the individual runs of the GFS, European, or Canadian models may not look very promising… the ensembles are very promising. When you blend the average of all the European models together, they suggest that by early February, 8 to 12 inches of snow fall in the Hudson Valley. When the blended average of 50 different scenarios suggest that kind of snow in 15 days… you’re likely in pretty good shape. So the guidance is seeing a much more active pattern, and that should keep us busy as we move into next week.
Have a great Thursday, everyone!