First Alert Weather: Frigid air and lake flakes return

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WHEC) — Our mini January thaw is coming to an end, with a pair of cold fronts moving through western New York tonight.

The first will bring a mix of rain and some wet snow, changing over to plain old snow showers before midnight, but most will see less than 1" of accumulation from this. Another punch of colder air arrives early on Friday. This will drop us from the lower to mid-20s early Friday into the teens by Friday evening. Winds will be breezy, which will drop wind chills below zero by evening.

A little lake effect will get going Friday into Saturday morning, but the air will be quite dry, which will limit accumulations. Monroe, Orleans and Wayne Counties may see an inch or two between Friday and Saturday. So, nuisance amounts. The cold will be the bigger story. Air temperatures will start off within a few degrees of zero on Saturday morning, and struggle to make it out of the single digits. Any wind at all will make it feel more like -5 to -15 at times on Saturday. The Bills game Saturday night will be frigid. If you’re attending the game, you’ll want to cover up all exposed skin and dress in many layers!

Sunday looks very pretty, despite a frigid start near zero. We’ll climb back into the mid-20s under a mostly sunny sky. But that is where the quiet weather ends. We’re still tracking a major winter storm that’ll be churning up the east coast over the weekend. It’ll make its way into the Northeast Sunday night and Monday. There is growing confidence that western New York will see a moderate, possibly high impact event on Monday. While we are still four days out from this event, guidance is coming into fairly good agreement of a favorable track that would produce heavy snow across our area. A slight shift in this track will make a big difference in our snowfall amounts, so stay tuned to News10NBC.

The First Alert Weather Team will update the forecast around the clock leading up to the weekend and next Monday. Following the storm, we’ll see some additional accumulation from lake effect, but this should be fairly brief, and may just be the "icing on the cake."

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