Marine Weather and Tide Forecast for Cortland, NY

KEY MESSAGES
1) Hot today with some haze later as smoke moves in aloft from fires in south central Canada, thicker smoke possible Wednesday as a cold front moves through.

2) The ridge of high pressure continues to move west, with some east coast troughing trying to bring cooler, but more unsettled weather, for the end of the week into the weekend.

DISCUSSION
KEY MESSAGE 1...

A very anomalous airmass is moving through with 850 mb temperatures near record highs for modeled climatology, with values between 23 and 25C. Luckily this pocket is transient but will be moving overhead around peak heating. Temperatures were still lowered slightly from the NBM as smoke released by many fires in South Central Canada yesterday afternoon could advect in aloft limiting our heating a bit. Still with dew points in the mid to upper 60s and highs in the low to mid 90s will support heat indices in the upper 90s.

Wednesday will have a front move through early in the day, with temperatures and dew points falling off from north to south. It also looks like the low level smoke from yesterdays fires would be moving in closer to the surface behind the front. Given how widespread the fire activity was as well as several pyrocumulus released by the fires, the smoke plume later tonight into Wednesday could be quite thick. Temperatures were not adjusted down yet but the potential is there if satellite this afternoon shows us in the plums path. The front does not look to reach the Wyoming Valley and Poconos until mid to late afternoon so heating ahead of the front could push heat indices back to near 100 (If smoke is not thick ahead of the front).

KEY MESSAGE 2...

The strong ridge retrogrades west Wednesday evening into Thursday with the region under NW flow. Temperatures will still be above average but dew points will be low. One thing to watch Thursday is what happens upstream in Canada north of the Great Lakes. Right now models are dry, but with NY/PA right under the NE edge of the ridge of high pressure, it won't take much to get a storm complex develop and dive SE into the Mid Atlantic.

Better chances of widespread showers and thunderstorms comes this weekend as the axis of the big ridge sets up over the intermountain west with a trough beginning to dig into the Northeast. 0-6 km shear this next weekend is elevated with the jet stream overhead and NW flow, with values hovering between 30 and 50 knots. Most models have at least some CAPE developing Saturday and Sunday along with 700-500 mb lapse rates between 6C/km and 7C/km. Isolated to scattered severe storms are possible.

AVIATION /12Z TUESDAY THROUGH SATURDAY/
Mostly VFR conditions are expected for the entire period, however there could be a period of MVFR visibility due to haze as some wildfire smoke starts filtering into the region from Canada. Winds will increase later this morning with occasional gusts of 20 to 25kts possible at the Central NY terminals during the afternoon.

Outlook:

Tuesday afternoon through Friday...IFR to MVFR visibility restrictions possible at times on Wednesday due to wildfire smoke from Canada. Wildfire smoke density is still uncertain for Thursday and Friday at this time.

Saturday...Scattered showers and thunderstorms and associated restrictions possible.

BGM WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES
PA...Heat Advisory from 11 AM this morning to 8 PM EDT this evening for PAZ038>040.
Heat Advisory from 11 AM this morning to 8 PM EDT Wednesday for PAZ043-044-047-048-072.
NY...Heat Advisory from 11 AM this morning to 8 PM EDT this evening for NYZ009-015>018-022>025-036-037-044>046-055>057-062.