Uncertainty remains with system that impacts region Wednesday into
Thursday.
Cold front slowly eases into the region on Wednesday with a mix of
rain/snow changing to mainly snow by Wednesday evening. Some snow
accumulation is likely especially western NY to North Country late
Wednesday into Wednesday night. Beyond this is where the uncertainty
increases, just as higher PWATs and heavier QPF lifts in from the
Gulf of Mexico.
In a nutshell, ECMWF and ECMWF ensembles continue to trend colder
and really more suppressed with the overall system with little if
any chance of anything other than snow. Heaviest snow would be south
and east of our area though. GFS and GFS ensemble members are
farther northwest, but even this solution would not bring warmer
slug of air aloft and resulting wintry mix (mainly sleet or freezing
rain) back into the picture until later Thursday into Thursday night
as stronger wave lifts along the primary frontal boundary. Main item
to watch here is not really the sfc low, but rather the H85 low and
warm tongue aloft which tracks more over western NY to the North
Country before colder air comes crashing back in by Friday morning.
Canadian operational is like the farther northwest GFS, but its
ensembles are more in line with suppressed ECMWF idea. So again, a
lot of uncertainty and expect the details with the forecast to
continue to change as we work into early this week. Given the deep
moisture that this system will have to work with, high impact winter
weather, likely mainly from a snow standpoint, could occur. Some
ice could occur as well though. So, stay tuned.
For the forecast, generally kept the flavor of the previous forecast
in terms of pops/weather, but leaning toward the ECMWF trend, kept a
zone of wintry mix (snow, sleet and freezing rain) across Southern
Tier to western Finger Lakes and removed the mention of plain rain
out of the forecast anywhere in our area.