Our next chance for widespread rain will come late this week as an area of low pressure rides along the East Coast Thursday and Friday. Over the past 42 hours however, models have trended towards less rain for the Twin Tiers. Earlier this week it looked like we would be gearing up for a soaking rain Thursday and Friday, but as of this morning things have trended towards lighter rain. Not shocking as upper level lows are a forecasters nightmare, but a bit of a let down as many areas are running below normal for precipitation totals to date this year.

The trend is not because of the position of low pressure, but rather due to the upper level wind orientation. Yesterday morning, winds in the lower layer of the atmosphere were coming out of the southeast and forcing a plume of moisture into the Twin Tiers and the surrounding areas. This setup set a bulls eye for the heaviest of rain centered over our region with some areas possibly picking up close to 3" of rain. Yesterday afternoon though, upper level wind support began to shift out of the southerly direction and push the heaviest of the rain slightly east and then this morning trend has continued which pushed the heaviest of the rain well east and towards New England. Usually there is a bit of uncertainty with global models for situations like this but this time around they are in good agreement which is increasing confidence for less rain locally. This does not mean we will not see any rain, but it looks like instead of the totals we were looking at yesterday will not happen. Now, it looks like much of the Twin Tiers will see generally between a tenth to a quarter of an inch with localized higher amounts.

It does still look possible for snow to mix in late Thursday night and into Friday morning though as temperatures will come down into the mid 30s by day break Friday. No accumulation is expected across the Twin Tiers, but some isolated locations may approach the freezing mark which may make travel slick out the door early Friday morning.

-Alex