Yellow Alert for Saturday: Gusty storms a possibility to begin April

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – The last day of March will be a wet one, with a period of rain in the morning, which may start off as a brief wintry mix of snow and ice. The steady rain will become more intermittent by afternoon and evening. So, not as wet, but still damp at times.

If you have plans to attend the Red Wings home opener tomorrow, it won’t be a washout, but plan on some rain and showers nearby. Temperatures on Friday will start off near freezing, and end near 50 degrees. Remnants from severe weather in the Midwest will move into western New York Friday night into early Saturday. We won’t see severe weather then, but we may see some downpours and hear some rumbles overnight.

The forecast for Saturday has changed quite a bit in the last couple days. We still expect active weather, but the threat for a high wind event and power outages has gone down, and the threat for gusty thunderstorms has gone up. This is because we are now expected to break into the warm sector of a strong storm, meaning we’ll see some sun and dry weather in the morning, with temperatures popping well into the 60s.

The atmosphere will have enough energy as a strong cold front plows through to produce some thunderstorms with gusty winds a possibility. Winds are still expected to ramp up following the cold front, but should only reach the 40-45 mph threshold. This isn’t enough to produce damage, but any stronger storm could bring some gusty winds.

A Yellow Alert remains up for Saturday, but for the storm threat as opposed to high winds. Stay with News10NBC and the First Alert Weather team as we fine tune the storm threat Saturday.