First Alert Weather: Bitter air, lake flakes return to Rochester

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WHEC) — Temperatures made it into the lower 40s on Wednesday, helping to melt some of the snow on roads, sidewalks and driveways.

We hope you took advantage of our January thaw, as it is coming to an end. A series of cold fronts pushing through tonight will drop our temperatures into the lower teens by Thursday morning. This will most certainly cause any wet roadways and slushy sidewalks to freeze and become slick. We’ll be stuck in the freezer for much of the rest of the month.

Temperatures will drop close to zero by Friday morning, only recovering into the lower teens by afternoon. Our coldest air of this bitter blast will arrive Friday night and Saturday morning with air temperatures dropping below zero, and well below zero in some spots. The record low for Saturday morning sits at -9°, set back in 2005. Our forecast low is -6°, but we could come close to that record low, especially if we see a clear sky. We’ll climb back into the 20s by Saturday afternoon and Sunday, but another blast of Arctic air will arrive by the middle of next week.

Snow chances: This bitter air will allow some lake effect snow showers to develop, but the air will be quite dry, will which limit accumulations. Expect a coating to an inch or so Wednesday into Thursday, with another coating to an inch or two Thursday night into Saturday morning, mainly north and east of Rochester. Parts of Wayne County may pick up several inches of new lake fluff by the weekend, but at this point, this is nothing but nuisance snow. We’ll get another chance of snow showers, with little accumulation Sunday into Monday, and a better chance of some accumulating snow by Tuesday and Wednesday of next week.

We’ll continue to monitor new data as it comes in, but the snow next week may be an area-wide accumulating snow, but not to the extent of our big storm this past Monday.

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