Rain, sleet & snow now turns to snow this evening

SYRACUSE, NY (WSYR-TV) Soaking rains give way to a wintry change for all of CNY tonight but is expected to be more impactful over the hills. Details are below…

A Winter Weather Advisory is in effect for parts of central New York, especially across the higher terrain Wednesday afternoon through Thursday due to the likelihood of an impactful heavy wet snowfall.

This includes Jefferson, Lewis, Oswego and northern Oneida counties until 8pm Thursday. The advisory for Oneida, Madison and Chenango counties goes until 8am Friday.

When does rain change to snow?

The area of low pressure that brought rain to CNY Tuesday night into the start of Wednesday has given way to a new, stronger storm taking over in the Mid-Atlantic region Wednesday evening that’s causing any rain in CNY Wednesday evening to change to snow at first over the hills during the evening and then most of the rest of CNY towards midnight.

Lows drop into the low to mid 30s tonight, or marginally cold enough for snow to accumulate for much of CNY outside the hills southeast and east of Syracuse.

Who has the best chance of needing the shovel?

Since temperatures will be marginally cold enough for snow, the snow is going to be very heavy and wet which may cause some tree branches to come down and possibly produce isolated power outages.

We also, are confident that the most significant snowfall accumulations of up to 4-8” are possible over the higher terrain with a slushy coating to 2” falls for the rest of CNY, including Syracuse Wednesday night through Thursday morning.

Thursday morning commute impacted by snow?

Most areas, including Syracuse, should not have any significant issues getting into work and school Thursday morning with just mainly wet roads since temperatures are expected to be above freezing and the snow is tapering during the commute. Meanwhile, over the hills it’s probably a different story with some slushy/sloppiness expected to start Thursday.

By mid to late morning all area roads, including the hill towns should turn just wet with temperatures going above freezing and scattered lighter snow showers around. Any snow showers may even mix with a bit of rain at times over the lower terrain Thursday afternoon with highs in the upper 30s to low 40s.

A bit more snow late week

An additional coating to an inch or two of snow is possible Thursday night into the start of Friday and possibly Friday night too, but no significant/impactful snow is anticipated late in the week due to marginally cold temperatures, generally above freezing, and generally speaking lighter snow too.

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