Area's warm weather record falls; snow is next

PHOTOGRAPHER: Marc Schultz

Montgomery County DPW truck driver Mike Bauer pressure washes the salt off his truck after returning from Buffalo in this Nov. 24 photo.

Roughly half a foot of snow is forecast for the Capital Region on Thanksgiving eve, just two days after the mercury broke a high temperature record logged 34 years ago.

Meteorologist Brian Frugis of the National Weather Service in Albany said a wind moving out of the south brought a brief thaw to the area from Sunday into Monday. And when the clouds broke Monday afternoon, temperatures soared up to 70 degrees, which was registered at the Albany International Airport.

“That broke the record set back in 1979,” Frugis said. “With the sunshine breakout today, it allowed temps to get pretty warm.”

The spring-like weather came just two days after temperatures dipped into the teens. Saturday morning, the temperature was 15 degrees, Frugis said.

The respite from the looming wrath of winter will be short-lived, though. Frugis said winds will shift again, bringing cold air from the north and returning temperatures back to the mid-30s.

Now the region is bracing for what could be a substantial snowfall predicted for most of the day on Wednesday. Frugis said a nor’easter moving up the coast has enough punch to drop upward of 8 inches of snow around the Albany area, depending on the path of the storm.

Snow is expected to begin sometime in the late morning and continue through the day, with the heaviest coming during the late afternoon. The storm could also break the existing record of 4.9 inches recorded on Nov. 26, 1888, Frugis said.

“It definitely looks like we’re going to see the storm and the snow,” he said. “There’s still some question about how much we’ll get though.”

Some areas south of Albany are expected to get up to and possibly more than a foot, according to the weather service. The storm is expected to make a mess of what is ordinarily one of the busiest travel days of the year.

Frugis advised people expecting to travel on Wednesday to adjust their plans accordingly. If possible, he said, travelers should either schedule their departures earlier or leave once the storm leaves the area on Thanksgiving Day.

“It’s coming in during the morning [Wednesday],” he said. “If you don’t have to go to far and you can wait till Thursday, it’s probably better to wait.”

The forecast already has officials at Albany International Airport bracing for a long day of cancellations and delays. Airport spokesman Doug Myers said the path of the storm could hamper operations at several of the hubs along the Northeast: Newark, New Jersey; New York; Philadelphia; and Washington, D.C.

“That tends to have a domino effect across the country,” he said, “and we’re part of those dominoes.”

About 4,500 people are expected to fly in and out of Albany International on Wednesday. Myers said airlines are roughly 90 percent full right now.

“If it’s a big nor’easter, we’re going to see some problems,” he said.

The forecast also has some Thanksgiving Day event organizers pondering a change of plans. In Schenectady, Ellis Hospital’s Cardiac Classic 5K run is expected to start from the city’s Central Park Thursday morning.

The race that usually draws more than 1,700 runners has only been canceled once in 33 years. Organizer Kristen Adach said the event has been run in the bitter cold and rain, so she expects it’ll go forward as planned unless city officials feel the conditions are unsafe.

Still, she said about 300 fewer people are registered now for the race than normal. She believes the ominous forecast may be the cause.

“Everyone is kind of looking to the weather to see if they want to brave it,” she said.