000
FXUS61 KOKX 230023
AFDOKX

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service New York NY
823 PM EDT Fri Mar 22 2024

.SYNOPSIS...
Low pressure approaches tonight into early Saturday, moving
across Saturday afternoon into early Saturday evening.
Thereafter, the low moves northeast of the region for the
remainder of Saturday night. High pressure builds Sunday, and
ridges down from the north Monday into Tuesday. A weakening warm
front approaches Tuesday night into early Wednesday. A frontal
system then pushes through slowly on Thursday with low pressure
forming along the boundary to the south and pushing offshore
into Friday. Weak high pressure attempts to build in afterwards.

&&

.NEAR TERM /UNTIL 6 AM SATURDAY MORNING/...
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Low pressure and an upper level trough approach tonight. Cloud coverage becomes overcast as clouds lower into early Saturday morning, with rain starting overnight and into daybreak Saturday. Depending on exact start time, there could be a wintry mix for some parts of the interior but expect any accumulations of snow to stay under an inch without any measurable ice accumulation. There will be a possibility of some freezing rain for parts of the interior, particularly for Orange County NY. Precipitation type expected to be all rain after 5AM Saturday. Lows will be established by late evening lower 30s for interior to mid 30s to near 40 along the coast. Temperatures across interior hold nearly steady overnight while closer to the coast, they will gradually rise.
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&& .SHORT TERM /6 AM SATURDAY MORNING THROUGH SATURDAY NIGHT/... Flood watch extended for NE NJ, Lower Hudson Valley, and Southern CT, same start time, 8AM Saturday but it goes until 8AM Sunday. This extension is because some of the area rivers and streams could still above their banks late Saturday night and this could linger into early Sunday morning. Flood watch remains in effect from 8AM Saturday through late Saturday night, ending 2AM Sunday for Long Island and NYC. Models with their axis of heaviest rainfall have some variations but overall shows the higher amounts generally between 2.5 and 4 inches from SW to NE from Northeast NJ northeastward through Southwest CT. Low pressure continues to approach the region Saturday with an increase in SE flow. The trough will continue to approach as well aloft with an associated increase in precipitable water. getting above normal for this time of year. According to SPC OKX sounding climatology, it will be above 90th percentile and near the max for late March with perceptible waters forecast to get to near 1.2 inches. This will lead to a greater moisture potential with this approaching system as a low level jet from the south increases. Aloft, upper levels will have increasing jet as well and the local region will be near right rear quad, increasing divergence and increasing synoptic lift during the day. Rain light in the morning, becomes steady. The rain picks up and becomes heavy late morning into the afternoon. Heavy rain lingers for eastern areas Saturday evening while to the west, rain will be lighter and eventually taper off. Late Saturday night, rain tapers off for eastern areas. The low pressure late Saturday night will be moving northeast of the region towards the Canadian Maritimes with high pressure starting to build in from the SE Canada and into the Great Lakes. This will increase cold air advection with gusty northerly flow Saturday night. Some of the precipitation before totally ending could be a mix of rain snow for some areas but this is a low chance and would be mainly across the interior portions. Winds pick up Saturday, will be higher within convective elements. Winds become gusty everywhere Saturday night with increase in pressure gradient between low moving northeast of the area and high pressure to the west. Gusts up to 30 to 35 mph during day Saturday, with gusts near 40 mph more likely Saturday night, especially along the coast. Thunderstorms could produce brief wind gusts to near 45 mph. Concerning flood impacts, NE NJ and into Rockland appears to have lowest amounts of rain needed for flash flooding, 1 to 1.5 inches in a 3 to 6 hour window. That seems to be the general area where flooding could more easily take place. See hydrology section for more details. The ensemble river forecasts depict a large majority of the area rivers going into flood with this upcoming event, especially taking the GEFS and NAEFS ensembles into account. CAMs depict a large aggregate of heavy rainfall entering the region from SW to NE Saturday afternoon. Eventually as this area shifts NE towards Lower Hudson Valley and Southern Connecticut the CAMs are indicating a squall line developing for the coastal areas, parts of NYC through Long Island and Southern Connecticut for the early evening hours. Here is where there could be localized torrential downpours with chances for 1 inch per hour rainfall rates as well as a fraction of the low level jet getting mixed down via downward momentum of the heavy rain and within any thunderstorms. This will be manifested as a downburst of winds with wind gusts up to near 40 to 45 mph for brief periods of time. CAMs are coherent in their reflectivity signatures but vary in size and individual intensities. Regarding thunderstorms, there are some mesoscale model depictions of MUCAPE moving across parts of the coastal areas Saturday afternoon and also within point selections on BUFKIT, some narrow elevated CAPE. The timing shown however is more during the afternoon and not as much during the early evening. It appears the strongest vertical forcing and vorticity are occurring afternoon into early evening along with increasing low level frontogenesis. Chances for thunderstorms along southern Long Island and ocean late Saturday afternoon into Saturday evening are forecast. Slight chances of thunderstorms to the north across the rest of the area are also forecast. && .LONG TERM /SUNDAY THROUGH FRIDAY/... The latest guidance is showing better agreement in getting precip offshore and clear of far eastern sections Sunday AM. High pressure to the north in Southern Canada slowly builds out of the northwest on Sunday. Clearing takes place from west to east during the morning and into the early afternoon. There remains some question as to how much clearing takes place, especially further east. The second half of the weekend however does appear to remain dry. As the offshore low spins and rotates bands of showers well offshore, a few could get close to far eastern areas but all in all the chance for showers looks fairly remote, thus covered with only a slight chance / minimal PoPs for far eastern areas Sunday night into early Mon AM. The low will meander offshore through early Tuesday with the upper level ridge axis approaching late Mon and likely passing through by Tue AM. At the same time in the low levels high pressure ridges down from the north along the northeast coastal plain. This should keep the low levels dry and with sinking motion to the west of the offshore low and frontal boundary expect a good deal of sunshine on Tuesday. Some high clouds should start to push in for the afternoon and evening in advance a warm front which draws closer Tuesday night. For now kept Tue night dry as higher heights along the eastern seaboard should slow down the advancement of lower clouds and precip from the west. Heights lower for mid week and by Wednesday the flow aloft becomes more cyclonic and thus introduced chance PoPs, with some low end likely PoPs late in the day and at night. Questions remain for Thursday with much of the global deterministic guidance more to south and eventually to the east with a wave of low pressure forming along a slow moving occluded / cold frontal boundary for Thursday into Friday. Went a bit below consensus / NBMEXP PoPs Thursday and Friday and kept chance to low end chance PoPs in place for this timeframe with overall confidence below average late in the period. Temperatures will average a few degrees below normal Sunday through Monday night, followed by slightly milder and near normal temperatures for the remainder of the week. && .AVIATION /00Z SATURDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY/...
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A cold front approaches from the west tonight as low pressure approaches the terminals into Saturday afternoon. VFR to start, with ceilings lower and thickening through the night. MVFR expected around 09Z tonight, with conditions continuing to deteriorate through the morning and IFR conditions expected by around 12Z. Periods of +RA across most terminals by the afternoon. Isolated TS not out of the question Sat afternoon and evening. Have included TS at KJFK and may expand to KISP where the highest probability of TSRA exists. Conditions improve late in the forecast period. S-SE winds this evening, less than 10 kt. Winds then shift to the SE to E through Saturday morning and into the afternoon at 15-25 kt and continuing in the afternoon, with gusts 25 to 30 kt after 18Z. Some stronger wind gusts of 35 to 40 kt possible with a line of strong showers and isolated thunderstorms developing and moving through between 19Z and 23Z. Immediately behind the low, winds shift to the NE to N after around 00Z Sunday, with a later timing for more eastern terminals. LLWS starting around 12Z for KNYC terminals and points east, with 40-50kts of flow at 2kft. Highest potential across LI and SE CT. NY Metro (KEWR/KLGA/KJFK/KTEB) TAF Uncertainty... Amendments likely for changing CIGs and VSBY on Saturday. Timing of LLWS onset early Saturday may be +/- an hour or two. High confidence in +RA potential Sat aft and evening NYC east. Lower confidence in TS potential KJFK and KISP. OUTLOOK FOR 00Z SUNDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY... Saturday Night: IFR or lower in rain, which will be heavy at times. NE wind gusts 30-35 kt Sunday: VFR. N-NE wind gusts around 25 kt. Monday: VFR. NE gusts 20-25 kt. Tuesday and Wednesday: VFR. Detailed information, including hourly TAF wind component forecasts, can be found at: https:/www.weather.gov/zny/n90
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&& .MARINE... Sub-SCA conditions tonight. SCA for non-ocean Saturday but brief gale force gusts possible with heavy rain and any possible thunderstorms late afternoon. Low level jet will be closer to the region so the ocean goes from SCA gust conditions in the morning to gales in the afternoon. Gales expected for all waters Saturday night, continuing into Sunday morning. Gales should give way to small craft conditions from west to east on Sunday, with gales possibly lingering out on the eastern ocean into a portion of Monday. Otherwise small craft conditions will remain in place through Monday night for much of the coastal waters with ocean seas remaining quite elevated. Perhaps more marginal small craft conditions will remain for the western non-ocean waters. Small craft seas will remain in place for the ocean waters through Tuesday, with small craft gusts perhaps only remaining for the far eastern waters into Tuesday afternoon. && .HYDROLOGY... Total rain forecast, 2.5 to 3.5 inches with locally higher amounts possible. This will give a chance for flooding, especially Saturday afternoon into Saturday evening, when flash flooding will be possible as well. There could be some residual flooding with elevated rivers and streams after rain ends Saturday night which could linger into early Sunday morning. NE NJ into Rockland seems especially prone, where there is some of the lowest flash flood guidance for 3 to 6 hours. Low-lying, poor drainage and urban areas will also be prone to flooding. MMEFS indicates potential, especially from GEFS, for some moderate to possibly even localized major flooding for some rivers, particularly for the Saddle River at Lodi. The moderate flooding risk is if more than 3 inches of rain occurs within a 6 to 12 hour period and the major flooding risk is if more than 4 inches of rain occurs within a 6 to 12 hour period. No hydrological impacts are anticipated in the long term Sunday through Friday. && .OKX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES... CT...Flood Watch from Saturday morning through Sunday morning for CTZ005>012. NY...Flood Watch from Saturday morning through Sunday morning for NYZ067>071. Flood Watch from Saturday morning through late Saturday night for NYZ072>075-078>081-176>179. NJ...Flood Watch from Saturday morning through Sunday morning for NJZ002-004-006-103>108. MARINE...Small Craft Advisory from 6 AM to 6 PM EDT Saturday for ANZ331- 332-335-338-340-345. Gale Warning from 6 PM Saturday to noon EDT Sunday for ANZ331- 332-335-338-340-345. Gale Warning from 6 AM Saturday to noon EDT Sunday for ANZ350- 353-355. && $$ SYNOPSIS...JE/JM NEAR TERM...JE/JM SHORT TERM...JM LONG TERM...JE AVIATION...JP MARINE...JE/JM HYDROLOGY...JE/JM