Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Get ready for another high impact coastal storm tomorrow through Friday!


First, let's talk about tonight's weather – it's easy: quiet, dry and chilly weather for all with some frost possible again in the Hudson Valley. Thus a FROST ADVISORY is posted from Albany southwards down the valley, as well as, for the Southern parts of Washington and Berkshire county. This said frost may not happen tonight because of clouds gradually increasing which could prevent temperatures from getting cold enough to allow for frost to form.

The clouds coming in tonight are part of the impending storm that will affect us tomorrow through Friday.
The storm has yet to form. But the various sets of weather data that I have been looking at are starting to show some consensus or agreement on its development, strength and track. Here's what I'm expecting: the low pressure system will form over the Virginia Capes Thursday morning and begin to move northeastward, rapidly strengthening enroute to moving across east-central New England by Friday morning. The rate of deepening on the storm is going to be of an explosive nature so a very strong and powerful Nor'easter is expected. By late Friday through the weekend the storm will slow down as it moves across the Gulf of Maine to New Brunswick Province or Nova Scotia.
This storm is expected to be a multi-impact event for us.

The primary threat will be the potential for heavy rain. It looks like at least 1-2 inches could fall across the region especially from around the Hudson Valley west, as well as for the Southern Adirondack east to Warren County. Depending on the precise storm track, the wind flow around the storm could cause higher amounts of rain over the more mountainous areas of New York State especially over the Catskills to the Adirondacks. Since we have had a bit of wet spell this month, the ground is saturated and this means that additional heavy rain could cause some flooding. Because of this flood threat a FLOOD WATCH is posted for the Adirondacks, Mohawk valley and Catskills from late Thursday through Saturday morning.
The next threat is WIND: Once again potentially strong winds could rake the region later tomorrow and Friday. Tomorrow's wind threat may be confined to the Taconics, Greens and Berkshires where strong ESE to E winds could gust to 40 mph if not more.

On Friday as the storm begins to move over the Gulf of Maine much of the region could be buffeted by strong NW to W winds potentially up to 50 mph (if not more). Currently no wind watches, warnings or advisories are hoisted but this will probably change. If the strong winds do materialize (and they will) we could be looking at power outages.

There is yet another threat from this storm. Sorry folks! There could be some wet snow, especially over the higher terrain. Right now the snow threat appears to be limited to elevations at or above 1400 feet and at the moment the Eastern Catskills, Southern ‘Dacks and Southern Greens appear to have the better chance to see some flakes at least mixing in, if not get a period of all wet snow, especially by late Friday. The snow threat is problematic it all depends on a number of factors including how much in the way of colder air can work into the storm's circulation, whether or not (and if they do)  where any stronger bands of precipitation and lift form and again the precise storm track. As of right now these mesoscale features (banding and lift) cannot be forecast this far out.

In the wake of the storm the weekend will remain blustery to windy and chilly, too along with the threat for some scattered sprinkles or showers.

1 comment:

  1. Sounds like quite a mess. Hopefully the soil can handle it this time!!

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