First Alert Weather: Yellow Alert Friday for heavy rain and possible flooding

A Yellow Alert has been posted for Friday for heavy rain in the forecast, and the potential for some flooding. This is the result of the remnants of Tropical Storm Debby moving up the East Coast. The track of the low will be just to the east of Rochester, but close enough to produce heavy, tropical downpours. The rain will begin to move in Friday morning, and will fall steadily, and likely heavy for at least a few hours midday into Friday afternoon. The tropical nature of the storm means the air will be loaded with moisture. At this point, it appears the heaviest rain with the greatest threat of flooding may be in the Finger Lakes and eastern parts of New York state. That being said, there’s a pretty good chance even the Rochester area may see 1-2 inches of rain on Friday, with the Finger Lakes potentially seeing 2-4 inches in some spots. This would likely lead to poor drainage flooding, basement flooding, and also some creek and streams overflowing their banks. This is still a changing forecast, so check back in as we continue to update specifics of the forecast.

We’ll be nice and quiet leading up to Friday. Wednesday night will be fairly comfortable with low humidity and clouds slowly starting to thicken. Thursday will become mostly cloudy, but outside of a few occasional showers, we should see a good deal of dry time. More widespread showers ahead of the main heavy rain will begin to move in Thursday night.

If you’re looking ahead to the weekend, our weather looks pretty good. It’ll be cooler and more comfortable again with mainly dry weather, outside of a stray afternoon shower on Sunday.