First Alert Weather: A wet end to 2024 and some snow and wind to kick off 2025

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – 2024 will end on a wet note, with showers and rounds of rain Tuesday night into early Wednesday morning. But the milder air won’t last long. It’ll be turning progressively colder and turning windy on Wednesday. This will change any lingering rain showers to some wet snow by midday, continuing into the afternoon and evening hours. Impacts on the roads will be minor, with surface temperatures remaining above freezing for most of the day. Winds will be gusty, with some gusts pushing 40 mph into the afternoon and evening.

As the main area of low pressure pulls away, lake effect snow will organize off Lake Ontario. A western/northwesterly wind will focus the main band of lake snow into Wayne County, especially the northern and eastern parts of the county. This is where several inches of snow will likely accumulate on Thursday. Most of the rest of the area will see very little snow on Thursday, but the winds will remain gusty, and it’ll turn slowly colder, with temperatures falling back into the 20s.

While the lake effect will weaken and fluctuate at times, the main focus will be on parts of Wayne County, Oswego, and north of Syracuse into the weekend. We’ll see another blast of colder air next week, which will keep our temperatures below average and frequent bouts of lake effect snow. At this point, we do not see any synoptic (widespread) snowstorms on the horizon, but we’re certainly entering a much more active winter weather pattern.