Syracuse, N.Y. — A powerful storm stretching from Texas to Maine could cause extended power outages, flight delays and hazardous driving conditions as it sweeps across the country over the next few days.
The storm could affect more than 150 million Americans, according to AccuWeather, a private forecasting company. Flights could be delayed, especially those in the storm’s path, and the flights that do take off could see more turbulence than normal.
Upstate New York could get bitterly cold temperatures and heavy snow this weekend as the storm pushing up the East Coast collides with the coldest air of the season surging in from Canada.
“We’ve got some pretty cold air up across the northern part of the country and we’ve got some warm and rather humid air trying to push northward from the south,” explained Tom Kines, an AccuWeather meteorologist. “The clash of those two air masses is what’s going to kind of wreak havoc across the southern states.”
A major storm that could drop heavy snow and freezing rain will spread from the Southwest to the Northeast over the next five days. Bitterly cold air pushing from the north will collide with warm, humid air surging in from the Southwest.Accuweather
The forecast for the Northeast is still uncertain because it’s unclear precisely how those storms will interact, and how far north the moisture will reach. The latest forecasts, though, show the storm’s path shifting to the north.
“It’s looking like the southern storm is going to make enough of a turn north that it gets snow up into New York state,” Kines said.
The heaviest snow is expected in the southeast portion of the state, from the Hudson Valley through the Southern Tier and Capital Region.
Winter storm watches are in effect Sunday morning to Monday evening for much of Upstate New York.
Today’s high temperatures in the 30s will seem subtropical by the weekend. The temperature starts falling this afternoon and doesn’t stop until Saturday morning, when much of Upstate will be in the low single digits. Strong winds from the northwest will bring the wind chill down to minus 10 on Saturday morning.
Syracuse might not even reach 10 degrees on Saturday, and only in the low teens on Sunday.
The snow is expected to reach New York early Sunday morning and spread west to east during the day. Because of the very cold conditions, the snow is likely to be light and easily blown around by the wind, the weather service said.
Upstate New York will be on the colder side of the storm, so no ice is expected that could lead to power outages.