Welcome to snowmobilers across the rest of the Tug Hill! Everyone that is sitting north of the north/south line is in on riding through January 2nd. Then the whole state is in the mix.
The next 48-60 hours is not a snow time. It is a melting time. Pray it doesn’t all melt!
The great news about this particular warmup is this: We are not looking at a major rain event. That did a lot of damage to the snow pack over the northern areas which are currently riding. Thankfully the amounts of rain that are expected to come through this time around are a lot less than the inches upon inches we saw last time.
WARMTH RUNS OUT OF GAS
Wednesday afternoon and into Wednesday night, the 40s go away, the 30s and 20s return, and we see rain changing back to snow across Upstate NY, particularly in the northern half of the state. This is not an accumulation forecast. Yet.
LAKE EFFECT COMING?
Maybe! We are within 7 days with this very cold air coming on in. It gets colder each day from Thursday into next week (the week of Christmas) and it will start getting into the higher resolution models later today. Especially tomorrow and Wednesday. We are talking potentially another multi day, multi level lake effect event with feet upon feet of additional lake effect snow. If it hits. The cold air will be there. Will the other factors come into play? That’s still the question.
IT IS GOING TO BE COLD!
This 6-10 day is about the best one I have seen. It goes from this Saturday through Christmas Day. And it is cold. Very cold! We are talking below freezing all the time with locally heavy snows each day off of the still warm waters of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. It will be a Christmas to remember! Not since 2018 have we seen it like this around here!
HOW WARM ARE THE GREAT LAKES?
Two weeks ago I showed them. The temperatures were near, if not, in record high territory. Some spots were still near 50 degrees! How has two weeks of generally below normal temperatures changed it? Well it has to some extent. We are still above normal with lake temperatures still in the low to mid 40’s. In some spots it’s still upper 40’s which is near record for this late in the year. With 6-10 days being way below normal, I would expect lake temperatures to drop off closer to normal by the new year. It would help. Some parts of the northern Tug Hill are already over 100″ of snow for the year!
That’s it for now. More coming up tomorrow.
Zack and Rich Lupia
Upstate Snow
December 16, 2024
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