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.
