Cold Into Friday Morning Snow Threat Saturday

Our weather front has moved on through, the fog is gone, and the downpours are done. Now we need to get rid of the wind which will occur slowly overnight. Skies will clear out over Long Island and temperatures are headed down to near or just over 30 by morning. Another cold air mass arrives in this wintry early April.

US SATELLITE

Regional radar shows an unusually busy lake effect machine underway as cold air moves across the lakes and heads downstate to us. The local radar below is now nice and quiet with no issues through Thursday. Look for lots of sunshine on Thursday but highs only in the middle 40s.

Friday we will see the first of 2 weather systems. A weak warm front moves up around a low in the Lower Lakes that heads into upstate NY. A burst of snow is possible Friday morning for a few hours that should not amount to much unless it whitens up the ground in some places. This will occur between 4am and 8am. Then its clouds and maybe a few passing rain showers going into the evening. Then a cold front passes which sets the stage for Saturday.

Think back to last Monday; this will be a repeat performance with snow developing during the early morning hours Saturday, probably around 4 or 5am and lasting until mid afternoon. The wave will be vigorous enough as it rides east northeast to the Virginia coast. From this point I’m favoring a colder solution here as cold air is ample and will drain quickly southward Saturday morning. The vigorous wave to the south will slide east northeast keeping us in cold air. Precipitation may start as some rain initially before changing quickly to snow Saturday morning.

Snow accumulations will depend on the intensity of snowfall to offset the snow falling more in the daytime verses the night. This makes an accumulation forecast especially difficult but for now I’m thinking several slushy inches seems doable here. The impact on roads is always a question but it is on a Saturday and not a work day which is a plus. Colder surfaces will likely see snow accumulation. We will probably not know for sure until Friday whether there will be road impacts or not. The bottom line is it is a spring system. It snows and then it melts. Weather conditions improve Sunday with sunshine but again another very cold day with highs just in the 40s.