Conga Line of Storms to Deliver Snow, Freezing Rain and Rain Over the Next Week

After a snowy, stormy January, the opening days of February will bring a series of storms over the next week, delivering a steady beat of snow, freezing rain and rain.

A series of storms will deliver a steady beat of snow, freezing rain and rain over the next week in Upstate New York.

Three storms are likely to emerge from the West and rumble through the region over the next eight days, meteorologists predict. Temperatures in January stayed cold enough that snow was the dominant type of precipitation, but warmer air through mid-February will create various combinations of snow, sleet, freezing rain and rain.

“It looks like about every two days or so we’ll get a storm that kind of comes out of the Rockies,” said Mark Wysocki, New York state climatologist. “We’ll be on the southern side of these storms, and that puts us in this wintry mix when they come through.”

The National Weather Service has issued a hazardous weather outlook for Wednesday through Monday.

Here’s a look at each of the storms and what forecasters are predicting for each:

The first storm, still churning off the coast of Oregon today, will barrel across the country and reach Upstate New York late Wednesday and early Thursday. In what’s known as a “split flow,” that storm is likely to bring bands of snow to the north, rain to the south and a mix of sleet and freezing rain in the middle.

Upstate New York is in the middle.

“This one seems to be putting us pretty smack dab in the rain, sleet, freezing rain,” Wysocki said.

The storm will start out as light snow on Wednesday night before switching to freezing rain by Thursday morning. Roads could be very slippery in Syracuse.

“The timing of it couldn’t be worse for your Thursday morning commute,” said Fox Weather meteorologist Bob Van Dillen, who started his career in Central New York. “You’re talking about freezing rain as a possibility around I-81 south of the Thruway.”

The worst impacts from this storm are likely to be Pennsylvania and Ohio, but a long tentacle of the storm could reach into Western New York and causing icing problems there.

Temperatures warm up by Thursday afternoon and light rain is expected much of the day.

On the back side of that storm, strong winds will push colder air across the Great Lakes and drop some lake effect snow on Central New York on Friday.

The second storm is expected over the weekend, starting Saturday night and early Sunday morning. This one, the National Weather Service said, could be “eerily similar” to the Wednesday/Thursday storm.

Snow flurries are likely to start just after midnight Saturday, and then that could switch over Sunday morning to another freezing rain and rain mixture.

Temperatures much of Sunday will hover around freezing, a key ingredient in creating a wintry mix.

More lake effect snow could come Monday in the wake of that second storm.

The third storm, still out in the Pacific Ocean, is forecast to reach Upstate in the middle of next week. As always with a forecast a week in advance, there’s a lot of uncertainty about the timings and impact of this storm, but it could have a big impact.

“This one looks like a heavy snowmaker at this point for Wednesday of next week,” Van Dillen said.