In-Depth Weather: Looking Out for Rochester

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WHEC) — It’s time to look out for Rochester. This is a new in depth, medium range, outlook that First Alert Meteorologist Alex Bielfeld will dive in to. The purpose of this is to look past the 10 day forecast and give everyone an idea as to what they can expect as we move through the colder months. Meteorologist Alex Bielfeld will pin point timeframes in which we are looking for mild weather, cold weather, stormy and pleasant weather and help guide you through the Winter months ahead, so lets get started.

First, lets talk about the current setup across the Continental US. As of Sunday (11/21) morning, we have a ridge over the Western US which is allowing our developing trough to develop. This trough will bring us unsettled weather early this Thanksgiving week with rain, wind, and lake effect snow. This unsettled weather will give way to more seasonable conditions as we head into Thanksgiving as an area of high pressure develops to our south. Although Thanksgiving will be pleasant across Western NY and the Finger Lakes, the atmosphere will remain active. A blocking pattern over Greenland will persist through this week and into next weekend. This will keep the wavy pattern across north America and turn us unsettled once again as we head through next weekend. The jet stream will turn active over the Southeast, which will allow low pressure to form. Right now, it looks like we will have a cold front swing through Friday with rain showers transitioning over the snow showers. The wavy pattern in place across North America will allow for cooler air to make another appearance across our region locally. So, expect colder air to move back into the region this weekend and into early next week. Also, next weekend we will be watching out for lake effect snow to develop as winds come out of the west/northwest behind this front. Things do likely change as we move into December.

The week after thanksgiving will start off on the colder side as the wavy pattern continues, but towards the beginning of December things will try to switch. The blocking pattern over Greenland has shown signs of weakening and breaking down. Also, the ridge over the Western US has sown signs on numerical modeling of breaking apart as well. This will eliminate the curvy pattern over North America and transition the jet stream to a "zonal" west to east flow. This means that things will not be as active and temperatures will not be as cool and a seasonable pattern sets up towards the end o next week and into the following weekend. So overall, and active setup is generally expected through this weekend before things settle down next week. In terms of temperatures, over the next 10 days we will see brief warmups followed by injections of colder air before things try to turn warmer by the start of December and into the following weekend.

Time Periods to Watch:

Nov 21-Nov 23: Showers and gusty conditions followed by lake effect snow

Nov 26-Nov 28: Cold front with showers followed by lake effect

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