An aerial view of the heavy ice in Lake Erie in Buffalo Harbor on Jan. 30, 2025.
I'm not naming names. But it appears a coterie (that's the proper nomenclature) of groundhogs who went with warmth will end up leading their gullible followers down the rabbit hole ... at least for most of February.
Before we get into the extended range, we have a couple of near-term weather problems to deal with. Following a midweek seasonably cold and uneventful period, a messy area of low pressure may bring some slippery problems by the Thursday morning commute. The deeper dome of arctic air dominating into Thursday evening will begin to become eroded by warmer, moist air aloft. That will make the subfreezing air very shallow near the surface in time for early Thursday, following an inch or two of snow Wednesday night.
The warming aloft will take what begins falling as snow, drop it into the warmer air where it melts into rain, followed by falling into a shallow layer of subfreezing air near the surface. The exact depth of that layer will determine whether raindrops refreeze into sleet/ice pellets, which are less slippery, or remain as raindrops until they freeze on contact at the ground, forming freezing rain ... the slickest of all precipitation types.
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As Thursday progresses, ground temperatures will slowly move above freezing on a southwest flow, and the frozen mix will change over into just-plain scattered rain showers, meaning no problems for the evening commute.
Later in the day, with briefly milder temperatures, a gusty wind will take the edge off any warming toward the dinner hour.
Bottom line on Thursday: no heavy precipitation, but enough of a frozen mix to make for a slow morning commute.
By Friday, an elongated ridge of arctic high pressure from western Canada stretching to the Midwest will take our temps back down into the mid-20s, under a partly sunny sky with a cold breeze.
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During Saturday, meteorologists will be eyeballing a developing broad area of low pressure over the nation's midsection.
High pressure north of the storm system will keep our readings seasonably chilly, as the low begins to make its move toward the Northeast. The precise trajectory this low takes will be critical as to how much snow and mixed precipitation our region will receive. Model guidance appears to take the low far enough north to bring some warmer, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico aloft, keeping us from an all-snow event if the storm stays on this path. We may begin early Saturday evening with a period of heavier snow for a few hours.
But by late Saturday evening, the current storm trajectory changes the snow to sleet and freezing rain over Western New York, sparing us from heavy snow accumulations but substituting icy surfaces instead.
Should the storm's path shift a little farther south, that would mean more snow and less, if any, icing. In any case, Saturday night road travel looks problematic.
The low will be passing off to our east early Sunday, with any mix turning back to occasional snow showers in a cold breeze. Temps should fall back into the 20s, and Sunday daytime accumulations will be spotty and relatively minor.
That elongated arctic ridge will reestablish itself Monday and next Tuesday, keeping our highs below average, in the mid-20s. The ridge should keep the storm track next week suppressed farther south into Wednesday.
In the extended range, and here's where those wish-casting groundhogs went wrong, there are signs a lobe of the polar vortex will remain close enough to keep our regional temperatures below seasonal averages most days. Meteorologist Ben Noll recently examined an animated European model projection and posted it. It runs through Feb. 16.
Looking at the latest ensemble means (many multiple model runs for a better sampling), upper air patterns support colder conditions but do not look as extreme as in the previous animation. The polar vortex is located just far enough north in the European/EPS to keep the coldest of the cold in Canada.
The Climate Prediction Center also appears to take this tempered view of cold temperatures for the Great Lakes in their six- to 10-day and eight- to 14-day outlooks.
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