Soaking Rain From Nate Will Be The Story Monday

JAMESTOWN- Hurricane Nate will make its impact locally tonight and into early Monday morning.

The hurricane made its first landfall as a Category 1 hurricane near the mouth of the Mississippi River in Louisiana around 6:00 PM EDT Saturday afternoon, with a second landfall occurring near Biloxi, Mississippi as a Category 1, around 1:30 AM EDT Sunday morning.

The 5:00 PM EDT advisory from the National Hurricane Center shows that Nate is centered about 30 miles Northeast of Huntsville, Alabama as a weaker Tropical Depression with 35 MPH winds.

The current forecast from the NHC still keeps the center of Nate south and east of Western New York, but as I often tell you, we do not just focus on that center line.  The entire cone is what we focus on. With the forecast cone within close proximity to our region, that will allow some moisture from Nate to be thrown up our way throughout the day on Monday.

Our FutureScan computer model in the weather center shows some very socked-in bands of soaking rain showers spread across the region throughout the morning hours on Monday associated with the remnants of Nate.

The rain begins to taper off throughout the afternoon hours, as Nate’s rain is pushed eastward, but the clouds still hang around for the afternoon, so don’t count on much sunshine, if any. FutureScan points to average rain totals between one half inch and two inches through Monday night, with some localized totals up to three inches possible, with the heaviest rain confined to the Southern Tier, due to our closer proximity to the storm center.

While this rain will be beneficial to areas that are a bit dry, the concern is, if we get too much rain in a short period of time, we could see some areas with minor stream and creek flooding. There is a chance that some narrow pockets of heavier rain showers could set up, which may result in some minor localized flash flooding. However, we do not expect any severe weather with this; it will just be a breezy, rainy day, with temps in the lower 70s, and a healthy South wind 14 to 22 MPH.