JAMESTOWN – It’s another mild and muggy afternoon out there with popup showers and storms. However, relief is on the way as we look towards the middle of the week.
The sultry air mass that is place across Western New York is spawning the “thunderstorm lottery” this afternoon. You know how these air mass thunderstorms work; they popup at random times throughout the afternoon hours, fueled by the heating during the day, and not everyone will see a storm. The storms that do develop could be slow-moving, which could lead to a downpour, and with the slow forward motion, they will likely just rain themselves out. These storms will slowly fade away once the sun sets.
The NOAA Storm Prediction Center does have the entire region under a less-than-average Marginal Risk (1/5) for severe thunderstorms this afternoon and evening, with the primary threat being from brief gusty winds.
The better chance of rain will come tonight into Tuesday morning. Another system will be making its way through Western New York and with that, showers and thunderstorms will increase in coverage. As we’ve been mentioning, areas north in the Niagara Frontier have been parched for rainfall this season, and this system might be the last gasp of hope they have for the foreseeable future of picking up a good soaking to provide some relief.
In the Southern Tier, our in-house computer models have been going a bit aggressive with the rainfall totals; depicting a strip of very heavy rainfall in Cattaraugus County of over two-plus inches through tomorrow afternoon. While we think that might be overstated, heavy rain with overall totals approaching one to one half inches are likely.
The humidity and the heat begins to back off as we head into Wednesday with some nice sunshine, and that comfort factor will take us through the remainder of the workweek. It does look like scattered showers and storms will make a return for the weekend with only moderate humidity.
