Chilly But Sunny Tuesday, Temps On The Rise Towards Weeks End

JAMESTOWN – High pressure has built in for this Tuesday, which means nice sunshine across the area. However, it will still remain chilly throughout the day.

The wind pattern is still favoring a north to northwest flow, which allows the Jet Stream to grab colder air from Canada and release it across Western New York.

As we head into Wednesday, the winds will shift to the south and allow warmer air to invade the colder air across the region. That will warm us up into 40s through Friday.

On Friday, things began to get interesting. With a Cold front lurking, temps will spike into the upper 40s throughout the day.  The front will spawn widespread rain showers across Western New York, which could be moderate in intensity at times.

After the front moves through, the temps drop with the colder air and turn the rain over to snow Friday night through Saturday. The winds will come up behind the front for Saturday as well, becoming breezy to plain-out windy through the day.

White Christmas?: With the warmer weather we’ve had in recent weeks and the lack of any meaningful snowfall, the snow pack across Southern Tier has really melted away. The warmer temps and the rain late this week will not help with that situation.

However, there could be some Christmas magic. There are some signs on the global computer models that a weak system will move into the Ohio River Valley on Christmas Eve and produce some snow across the Eastern Great Lakes.

While we’re still too far out to know if this system will come to pass and how much snow we could see out of it, keep in mind that a “White Christmas” is described as having one inch or more measurable snow on the ground on Christmas morning, as defined by NOAA.

The snow on Saturday after the frontal passage and this *potential* system are really the best chances we have to add at least an inch of stickable snow before Christmas morning.


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