Marine Weather and Tide Forecast for Buffalo, NY

KEY MESSAGES
1) Much warmer but unsettled weather through much of next week.

DISCUSSION
KEY MESSAGE 1...Much warmer but unsettled weather through much of next week.

Surface high pressure will continue to drift east off of the New England coast, allowing for a warm front to slide northeast across the eastern Great Lakes Sunday afternoon and evening. With the entrance of the warm front, a few rain showers will spread across the region. The best coverage of shower activity will lie on the northern edges of the forecast area, across the Niagara Frontier and the eastern Lake Ontario region, due to the close proximity to the deeper moisture and strong isentropic lift.

The upcoming work week will feature a zonal to weakly ridged flow aloft across the eastern CONUS...with multiple weak to modest shortwave disturbances rippling through the mean larger-scale flow and crossing our region
In the process
these will interact with and modulate the position of a low-level frontal zone draped across the Great Lakes and Northeast...resulting in the latter wobbling about across our region while also serving as the conduit for occasional rounds of showers and isolated/scattered thunderstorms...
though there will also be frequent dry periods interspersed.

The first such wave will cross our region on Monday with fairly widespread showers and perhaps an isolated thunderstorm across the western Southern Tier...though instability looks to be pretty limited at this juncture. The tight pressure gradient out ahead of this wave also appears likely to support a period of breezy to windy conditions Sunday night into Monday...with the windiest conditions (gusts to 40 mph) most likely northeast of Lake Erie during Monday.
This first impulse will then be quickly followed by another wave later Monday night/Tuesday...with the latter bringing another likelihood of showers along with some scattered thunderstorms given better instability
After that time
the increasingly distant vantage point and inherent uncertainties in the timing of such waves result in progressively lower confidence in the timing of any showers/storms through the middle and latter portions of the week.

With respect to temperatures...this pattern will support readings more typical of late springtime than the second week of April.
Expect daily highs to range from the upper 60s to the 70s away from lake influences...with a few of our normal interior warm spots (hello Dansville) possibly even reaching or breaking the 80 degree mark at points if precip/cloud coverage allow
Meanwhile
nightly lows initially ranging from the 40s east to upper 50s west Sunday night will largely be in the 50s/lower 60s from Monday night onward.

AVIATION /18Z SATURDAY THROUGH THURSDAY/
Strong high pressure across the central Great Lakes will continue to drift east across the eastern Great Lakes tonight into the first half of Sunday. As high pressure is building east, cloud cover is gradually being stripped away from west to east as seen on current visible satellite. This being said even with the dissipating cloud cover, flight conditions have improve to widespread VFR.

VFR conditions will prevail throughout the evening, tonight and into Sunday morning. Northwest winds around 10 knots today will become light and variable tonight as high pressure crests overhead.

A warm front will lift northeast across the region Sunday afternoon and evening. Strong warm air advection on the northern edge of a low level jet will support scattered to numerous showers Sunday afternoon. Despite the showers, ceilings will be on the low end of VFR, with a few patches of MVFR across the Niagara Frontier.

Outlook...

Sunday night...Mainly VFR with scattered to numerous showers dissipating overnight.

Monday through Thursday...VFR/MVFR with a few showers likely at times, along with a slight chance of thunderstorms.

MARINE
Surface high pressure centered over the central Great Lakes, will continue to drift east this afternoon and overnight. As high pressure pushes overhead, winds will gradually shift west this afternoon and weaken to below 10 knots.

A freshening south to southwest winds will support Small Craft Advisory conditions to return Sunday night and Monday.

BUF WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES
NY...None.
MARINE...None.