Syracuse, N.Y. -- The first day of fall in Upstate New York will feel a lot like summer, with rains that could be heavy enough to cause flash flooding.
“A moist system is forecast to bring a soaking rain to the area during the second half of the work week, especially Thursday through Thursday night,” the National Weather Service office in Binghamton said. “About 1 to 2 inches of rain appears likely, though localized higher excessive amounts could occur depending on the speed of the system.”
The weather service has issued a hazardous weather outlook, a general heads-up that severe weather conditions are on the horizon.
A large storm system is likely to move in Wednesday from the southwest. The storm’s midsection is expected to pass through Michigan and Ohio by Thursday morning, dropping up to 5 inches of rain there.
The rainfall totals for Upstate New York remain fuzzy. Generally, when a storm is only a couple of days away, the multiple computer models consulted by meteorologists tend to converge on a similar scenario. Not this time, though.
“Given that our next system is only a few days away, there is a comical amount of model spread,” Binghamton weather service meteorologists said in their technical forecast discussion.
Some models show the storm moving slowly, which would give storm clouds more time to empty out, while at least one model shows the storm sweeping through quickly, limiting rainfall. The picture is likely to become clearer Tuesday as updated data are fed into the models.
“We will continue to monitor this closely for prospects of heavier rain ... which could cause localized enhancements/flooding issues,” the weather service said.
Syracuse had its second-rainiest summer on record, according to the weather service, which regards summer as the months of June, July and August. The heavens regard Wednesday, the day the sun stands straight above the earth’s equator, as the start of astronomical fall.
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