Messages
Wildfire smoke will continue to reduce visibilities and air quality through tonight. Air Quality Alerts remain in effect until midnight.
Widespread rainfall expected on Saturday.
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Area Forecast Discussions are the real forecasts, written 3 to 4 times daily by NWS meteorologists reading the models and interpreting what they mean for your area. They offer far deeper insight than any weather app, but they're written in dense meteorological shorthand. Plaincast uses Anthropic's Claude to summarize them into plain English, side by side with the annotated original.
Revised in 3 passages since the 7:38 PM discussion. See every revision.
Discussion
.KEY MESSAGE 1. Smoke from Canadian wildfires will continue to affect the Tri State region tonight. Looking at visibility and air quality data, the thickest smoke seems to extend from northern MI across Ontario and down through much of southern NY/northern PA, and just to our south into central NJ. The latest hi-res guidance continues to indicate this smoke will spread into our region later this afternoon into tonight, once again lowering visibilities and air quality. It will persist overnight tonight, then it should be shunted south of our area Friday morning as a weak frontal boundary/surface trough pushes southward. Unfortunately, there are indications that this smoke could lift back north later Friday into Friday night a flow turns back toward the S/SW. Regardless, Air Quality Alerts remain in effect for the entire region until midnight tonight, so please continue to take proper precautions.
.KEY MESSAGE 2. Thunderstorm development this afternoon has remained to the south. Cu development inland has dissipated inland, and development along the sea breeze front across Long Island has moved offshore. Will remove mention of precipitation into this evening.
Chances for widespread rain arrive Saturday into Saturday night, when a shortwave trough digs down into the Great Lakes and swings across eastern Canada/NE CONUS. Increasing southwest flow ahead of the incoming trough will allow a deep moist airmass to lift northward into our region on Saturday, with precipitable water progged to potentially exceed 2 inches. Showers and thunderstorms will become fairly widespread, particularly later Saturday into Saturday evening. Flow should be quick enough to keep individual cells moving enough to preclude significant flooding concerns, but heavy rainfall rates will be possible given warm cloud depths 13+ kft. This could lead to localized flooding, especially in poor drainage areas. We remain under a Marginal Risk in both the Day 3 Excessive Rainfall and Convective Outlooks.
Sunday is looking decidedly drier as models indicate a cold front will sweep across the region from the northwest during the morning hours. Both weekend days will have highs in the mid to upper 80s, but Sunday will be much more comfortable that Saturday, with dewpoints a good 5-10 degrees lower than Saturday.
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