Our weather the next couple of days will be dominated by a complex, slow-moving storm system. As of Wednesday evening, the weather map still showed the storm spread out with two areas of low pressure: one near Detroit and one near New York. One or both of these lows will have an impact on our weather into the weekend.
Low pressure that is near Detroit now will slowly work east tonight and will be close to central New York tomorrow. The air aloft and down near the ground will cool tonight as the low gets closer. That means areas that have seen mainly rain today (like Syracuse) will change to snow overnight. Any accumulation in these areas will be an inch or less. Over higher elevations, where it is cooler and snow is already the primary form of precipitation as of Wednesday evening, there could be a bit more snow by morning.
Low pressure down at the ground will move over us Thursday so we expect more clouds. Temperatures aloft will be a bit cooler than today so snow showers will dominate. A few rain showers could mix in over lower elevations in the afternoon as we warm into the upper 30s. The low moving over us Thursday will be weakening so the ‘forcing’ to create precipitation is not all that great. Snow showers will be more scattered in nature compared to today.
By Friday, the two lows we mentioned above will merge off the New England coast. This will cause a few things that will change our weather. First, the counterclockwise flow around the new main low off the coast will turn our winds into the northwest. This will tap into colder air now north over Canada and force it down over is. This is just cold enough to cause lake effect snow showers Friday.
The cold air that arrives will be reinforced over the weekend. Temperatures in central New York will average a bit more than 10 degrees below normal for the beginning of March. Combine that with a continued north to northwesterly flow and we have to kept snow showers in the forecast for the entire weekend.
