By MARK HANOK
Hurricane Ike, a powerful
category two hurricane
covering a larger area than
the Lone Star State,
reached Galveston during
the early morning hours on
Saturday, spreading torrential
rains across southeast
Texas.
The storm pushed northward
to northeast Texas
and southern Arkansas by
early evening, after bringing
some areas over 12” of
rain. One of the very best
indicators for a prolonged
stretch of beautiful weather
in Otsego County is widespread
flooding in southeast
Texas, especially with
a tropical storm or a hurricane.
In this kind of weather
pattern, any rain in the
Western Catskills occurs at
night or early in the morning,
with a dry, sunny
weather pattern beginning
no later than one day after
the Texas flooding event.
This was an excellent
signal that the rain predicted
for Sunday in our area,
would stay well to the west,
and that bright sunshine
would take over, then dry
weather for at least the
next ten days. Not only did
the tropical low bring no
rain to central and eastern
New York as it moved
quickly northward, the
storm pulled in unseasonably
warm air and incredibly
high humidity for so
late in the season.
In the Cooperstown area
skies were mostly sunny
from late morning right
through the afternoon, with
a very humid southwesterly
breeze; the high was 83 degrees
at our weather station
in Otego, with 70-degree
dew points. Highs
were in the upper 80’s
across central New York
and the Mohawk Valley, including
a high of 89 degrees
at Utica and 88 degrees at
Syracuse. By late evening
as the center of the low
moved to just east of Toronto,
all the rain associated
with Ike, lifted quickly
northward to far western
New York and southern
Ontario. A strong southerly
wind brought almost unheard
of warmth for late
evening so late in the season
to western, central, and
northern New York. At
22:00 it was an amazing 85
degrees at Rochester and
81 degrees at Watertown!
As if the hurricane
wasn’t enough to ensure
day after day of beautiful
early fall weather in the
Cooperstown area, the high
was 85 degrees at Billings,
Montana on Tuesday while
only 68 degrees at Raleigh,
North Carolina.
Now we can look forward
to absolutely magnificent
weather every day through
at least next week, and
temperatures will average
near to slightly above normal.
On Friday high pressure
centered over the
Great Lakes will continue
brilliant sunshine, with a
northerly flow of cool, very
dry air. With unlimited
sunshine and azure-blue
skies, highs will be in the
upper 60’s.
Brilliant sunshine will
continue on Saturday on a
southwest flow ahead of a
weak cold front. This front
will only serve to reinforce
the very dry weather pattern,
and Sunday with feature
partly sunny skies, a
northwesterly breeze, and
highs from 65 to 70 degrees.
Skies will be mostly sunny
Monday through Wednesday
with highs around 70
degrees.
Mark Hanok is an Otegobased
meteorologist. You
can visit him on the World
Wide Web at http://members.
aol.com/weathergazette.
Weather Watch
September 18, 2008
Weather Watch
- Weather Watch
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- Weather watch The Susquehanna River level will be unusually low for the General Clinton Canoe Regatta during Memorial Day weekend.
- Weather Watch It’s really uncanny how the very dry weather pattern has continued in this area despite the succession of major storms that have moved to the west and south.
- Weather Watch Now that north has become a synonym for sunshine and south has become a synonym for rain, there’s no way that this extremely dry weather pattern can change at least for the next four weeks.
- Weather Watch March was the third straight month with below normal precipitation, and it looks like April will also turn out to be drier than normal.
- Weather Watch Temperatures were near normal in March, with precipitation around an inch below normal.
- Weather Watch On Friday a major storm will move to the Ohio Valley, while high pressure builds southward from eastern Canada. Skies will be partly sunny with highs from 55 to 60 degrees.
- Weather Watch When it’s warmer to the north and cooler to the south, it’s so easy to get into an extremely dry weather pattern in Otsego County. The weather forecast in last week’s weather column was more optimistic than other local weather forecasts, but the weather was actually much better than even we predicted.
- Weather Watch The jet stream will shift southward this week and a series of low pressure systems will move well to our south.
- Weather Watch Exactly as we predicted at the beginning of the month, it was one of the driest Februaries on record in Otsego County and throughout most of central and eastern New York. Thanks to the extreme upside-down temperature pattern with much warmer weather in Montana than in Georgia, and strong winds on Monday and Tuesday, an extremely dry weather pattern will be the theme for at least the next two to three weeks.
- Weather Watch Exactly as we’ve been predicting for the past month, this is turning out to be an exceptionally dry February - one of the driest on record in central and eastern New York.
- More Weather Watch Headlines
