2/24 PM Forecast Discussion

My apologies for having to post this here. The SUNY Oswego campus network has somehow decided to block all Grotonweather.com traffic from its network. I have managed to update most of the forecast as normal, but things such as the confidence forecast and uploading snow maps are impossible. Hopefully this will be fixed soon....in the mean time, we have a snow storm on our hands!

Forecast Discussion
A rapidly strengthening storm system over Arkansas will lift north and east, crossing across Pennsylvania tomorrow morning. The models are more or less in agreement with one another now, and they all keep the warm air and rain to the south. Despite this, I am still a tiny bit weary of the possibility of rain for Tompkins and southern Cortland County, as the rain/snow line will only be 30-50 miles to the south. I do have enough confidence to go with all snow now though. As I said this morning, since this storm is probably going to end up all snow, we are going to get it good. Below the discussion is the snow map I made for this storm. Most of the Grotonweather.com area is in the 7-14" range. Honestly though, I would not be at all surprised to see 16" or even 18" somewhere in that pink area. The snow will move in after midnight tonight and really become heavy for the morning hours tomorrow. By afternoon, the snow should begin to taper off. However, the winds will be on the increase, blowing all that fresh snow around. Significant blowing and drifting is likely tomorrow. I would likely be going into SNOW ALERT MODE if I had access to my files. Saturday and Sunday will each feature a shot at a few flurries, but nothing significant. Another storm will be in the works for Monday, but this one should remain all rain with the low tracking well to our west.


Storm total snowfall through Friday evening.

The Hype Machine

My good friend, classmate and colleague Evan Duffey posted a wonderful piece on Syracuse.com this morning. He has given me permission to repost it here. There are a lot of excellent points he makes about how big storms get blown way out of proportion through hear-say and media hype. Take a look:

Storm under-performs, public and media hype make it worse

For those of you wondering why you children's classes were canceled, or what happened to the 18"+ of snow you were expecting because your neighbors told you it would happen, I have your answer. The storm grew to massive size and intensity - in a special place I call overexcited media and populace. The storm, while no pushover, is not that epic, and should never have been treated as so.

In talking to fellow Meteorologist and Syracuse.com blogger Andrew Montreuil, he agrees he is upset at how this storm got hyped up.

While the storm will probably leave a decent impact on the area, talk of 18", 2 feet, etc. have been floating around either word of mouth or the internet. My max total event given during the entire even was 14".

Which brings me to a point I would like to bring up. A MAX snowfall accumulation is not what we expect, it's more then what we expect. When a meteorologist puts up a snowfall range, even I put a little extra on that top number just in case the unexpected occurs. Sadly the public takes this number as what they are going to get. For all of you interested in weather, try to remember this when reading forecasts and discussions.

Now to the meat - why did this storm under-perform even Meteorologists predictions for a storm? I hinted at the reason in a comment I made a few days ago, in my first post about the storm. I said "I think the upper limits of snowfall are possible only if warm, dry air doesn't work its way in too far North." This is pretty much what happened.

Radar overnight revealed a large dry slot was working into the storm. Dry-slots are almost always destructive to storms, taking away some of their thermodynamic strength, and obviously precipitation is hard pressed to be found in an area called a dry slot.

Blogger Drew Montreuil was involved in a Q&A session recently, and one of them really brings to light a lot about the forecast and expectations. Here is the quote:

...just in my day today I have overhead people talking about how we are supposed to get 2 feet of snow and such. These are over exaggerations. Often times, forecasts for big storms seem to take a life of their own. People mishear or misread things and, like a massive game of telephone, things get blown out of proportion. Another common mistake I see all the time is people assuming the high end of a snow prediction will be what happens. If there is a forecast for 6-12", but only 5" falls....it really is a decent forecast. But the hype before hand makes it seem like a bust.

To answer the question directly...I could see this "busting" slightly, yes. There are some indications drier air may work in quicker than what was earlier thought. This could bring the snow to an end a bit quicker, and keep us more in the 4-7" range instead of 6-10". Its a developing situation, and one can never be too sure they have the forecast nailed until the event actually happens...

Hopefully your day isn't too upset by the hype and over forecast of this winter storm, and please don't blame meteorologists. We aren't all that wrong.

Blizzard Video

Here is my video update on the blizzard. Please leave feedback!

Snow Map

There have only been a couple changes to the forecast in the past 24 hours since last night's blog entry. Firstly, there is little question now that the entire storm over our area will remain as snow. The main stream of warmer air will remain north of us, and I question how far west it will make it. This makes it a very difficult forecast for Syracuse, but I think even they will remain mostly or all snow. The second change is more precipitation for the Grotonweather area. These two factors combined have given me the confidence to up my snow totals to 12-18" for most of the area. Here is my snow map for the entire storm.



I apologize for not having more updates today and not having a video, but its been a busy week at school this week. I am planning to do a video tomorrow morning though, so make sure to check in sometime after 10am. Oh, and Groton students, enjoy your day off- School has already closed for tomorrow!

3PM Snow Video

NOTE: The watches, warnings and advisory part of the show is already out of date, with a WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY in effect for the entire Grotonweather.com forecast area, and WINTER STORM WARNINGS in the bordering counties south and east. Enjoy the video...leave comments!

Late Season Storm

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Here is the latest on the late season snow event tomorrow.

Not a whole lot has changed since this morning. The cold front is spreading areas of rain across the region this afternoon. This front extends all the way into the southeast and back towards Louisiana and Texas. An area of low pressure is developing across the Deep South and will trigger a large severe weather out break tomorrow. The Storm Prediction Center has a large moderate risk out for that:


The front that is moving through today will stall out to our east. Meanwhile, that low will fly up the front to a position near New York City by mid afternoon tomorrow. There will be just enough cold air being pulled into the storm that it should be all snow for the areas in blue on this map I created:


The low will be moving pretty quickly up the stalled front and the ground is warm, so accumulations shouldn't be huge. The change over to snow will occur first in the higher elevations, and it will remain colder there as well, so expect the highest totals there. The rest of Central New York should get a moderate snow, but not enough to cause too many problem. It will be windy as well though, so use caution traveling tomorrow as the wind and snow will create poor visibilities. Here is my snowfall map for the entire storm, which should wind down pretty quickly tomorrow afternoon.


Where does this storm rank with some other 'out of season' storms? Its actually not very impressive. In 2007, our area was hit by almost 2 feet (18" is what I measured) on April 16-17th. In early October 2006, a monster lake effect event pounded Buffalo, causing millions of dollars worth of damage since the heavy wet snow stuck to the leaves on trees and brought them down. So this is more just a nuisance storm than anything. One commonality between the three storms is the lack of willingness on the part of the media to be bold and predict snow. Granted, the models are all over the place with this, as can be expected. But I feel really confident about this storm, as I did the April 2007 storm.

I will update again late tonight. I have a test in Tropical Meteorology (so ironic, isn't it?) tomorrow, so I won't be able to update again until 10 or 11. Stay tuned though!

Wednesday's Storm

I have decided not to issue a snowfall map for this storm simply because it looks like the entire area will have a pretty uniform accumulation from this. All of the Finger Lakes and Southern Tier look to be in for a good 7-12". I upped the amounts slightly from this morning based on the models bringing in more moisture than previous runs. I even saw some indications of amounts over a foot, but I think that is overdone.

All of the models are now in pretty good agreement with each other except for one. Normally, when a model is drastically different from the others, it wouldn't put too much of a damper on my confidence levels. However, this time it is the European model, which has been out-performing the other models all winter. The problem is...the Euro brings in enough warm air to cause a snow/sleet mix to occur over Central New York. My forecast totals do not reflect that happening, but if it does happen, I would think accumulations more on the order of just 4-8".

Another concern I have is my old nemesis, the dry slot. With any big storm, dry air works around the center and gets wrapped up into the storm from the southwest. If I mess up a big-snow forecast, usually it seems to be the dry slot that is the culprit. The models have this punch of dry air working across Pennsylvania during the day tomorrow, staying to our south. I imagine the counties right along the State Line have the best chance of being hit by it, meaning their snow totals may be on the lower end of the 7-12", where as the northern areas will be on the higher end. Like the mixing, my forecast doesn't have the dry slot coming in, but if the models miss and it ends up 50-100 miles further north, most areas will be hard pressed to get into that 7-12" range.

As for the timing of this storm, the snow will likely start tonight between 9-11PM. It won't take too long for the snow to get heavy, and we should have 3-5" by tomorrow morning's commute. I do not expect the snow begin to let up until after sunset tomorrow. Even then, we will be dealing with snow showers and perhaps some occasional periods of moderate snow right through the night. I would say a snow day is a decent bet for most places tomorrow, but its never an absolute. The WeatherChat will be opening sometime after 6:30 tonight and will likely stay open right through 11pm or midnight.

Dry Slotting

Snow Totals:
10AM- Dusting
11AM- 0.5"
12PM- 1.5"
1PM- 3.2"
2PM- 4.2"
3PM- 4.6"

Post:
Bad news for snow totals, good news for traveling...but the storm's dry slot is going to just hit Groton. It is racing eastward across Southern New York and should be entering Tompkins and Cortland Counties by 3:30. This should more or less end the snow.



Now, the low is forecast to start taking more of a southeasterly track, so I think we will get back into the snow this evening. However, we will be hard pressed to get to 8" I think...let alone a foot. I think 5-9" total would be a good projection for Groton now. Areas just to the north, however, that remain in the snow will stick in that 8-14" range.

Morning Storm Update

It is now quarter after 10am, and everything is going pretty much as expected. The snow started here in Groton about an hour ago, and already visibilities are down to roughly a mile as the snow has started to pick up in intensity. Looking at the official 10AM observations, Ithaca is reporting light snow, with moderate snow in Rochester, Penn Yan, and Dansville, and heavy snow falling in Buffalo. Over the next hour, expect the snow to continue to increase in intensity to the rate of an inch or so an hour. The snow will continue at least at that intensity, likely reaching 2" per hour at times, through the afternoon. Heavy and moderate snow is being reported back through Michigan. There is actually heavy snow in Wisconsin as well, but I think Lake Michigan is enhancing that snow since the winds are out of the northeast. Here is a look at the radar (from 9:30...but that is recent enough to get the point across). You can see any mixed precipitation is well south, and the snow extends back into the areas I just described. All this is moving more or less east-southeast.



Bottom line is the snow is going to come down hard very soon and continue at rates of 1-2" per hour until at least sundown. There may even be some thunder and lightning in the snow during the early and mid afternoon. Please leave a comment here, or log onto the chat (assuming it is open) and report any thunder! The chat room will likely be open most of the day today as well. I will continue to update this blog hourly, probably just with snow totals, but also any new information that comes in.

Another Friday Snow Storm

Another Friday, another snow storm for Central New York. Unlike last week's storm, this storm is not a nor' easter. It is pretty much moving west to east, so there is no worry about the models having an eastward bias. That makes my life a little easier this time around. I decided to do a snow map after all, even though the entire GrotonWeather forecast area should get the same amount.



As you can see, this will be a big storm, despite its relatively short duration. The snow will being to move in during the morning, before coming heavy by 10 or 11AM. It will really come down hard for a period of 6-8 hours, likely exceeding an inch per hour at times. By the evening, it will quickly taper off to just flurries over night.

I am going to dinner now, but once I get back (by 6:30-7), I will open the chatroom to field questions...and I will likely be there a good part of the night!

Love That East Bias!

I hinted this morning in my forecast discussion that "If it [the storm] really gets its act together, we could end up on the high end of those totals [from last night's snow map]." Well, the storm remains very impressive on satellite and radar. One thing is very evident though. The eastward bias of the models I was talking about is showing up perhaps even more significantly than I thought it would.

When I looked at the models last night, the back edge of the precipitation was roughly from a Pittsburgh, PA to Rochester, NY line. Already though, precipitation is being detected on radar as far west as Cleveland and Buffalo (though it is probably not yet reaching the ground). The low right now is over northern Georgia and is already a good one hundred or so miles further west than it is supposed to be.

The National Weather Service and local media stations have picked up on this finally and have more or less come into agreement with what I was saying yesterday. Tompkins and Cortland Counties are now under WINTER STORM WARNINGS instead of the Advisories that were in effect. Those last until 10AM tomorrow. Since the low will track a little further inland, the precipitation may be a bit heavier and last a bit longer than last night. I also mentioned this morning the possibility of expanding the 6-10" range west. As you can see, I have now done that with this new data.



After school activities have been canceled for many schools in our area. I would say that the chances of a snow day have increased a bit. It is still far from a certainty, but there is certainly cause for hope!

Also, if you haven't heard yet, I have a new feature on the site that I just added this morning. If you look to the black bar on the right side of the page, you will see a link to the 'GrotonWeather Weather Chat.' The text will either say the chat is open, of that it is closed. If it is open, it means I am sitting in the chat room, ready to give you whatever information you want to know about the weather! So, if you see that the room is open, come on in!

Snow Map

11AM Update: I just added a new feature to the website....a chat room! The link to the chat room can be found in the black bar on the right side of the page. More often than not, I will have the chat room closed. But, during times of severe or extreme weather, when I am on my computer forecasting, I will open up the chat for you to ask my questions about the weather. Please click the link to the right for more details...and if the room is open, stop in and say hi!

10:20AM Update: I have updated the main forecast page as promised. Next blog should be sometime between 4-7PM...probably sooner rather than later!

Original Post:
At last, here is the snow map. When one of the models came in, it still had the storm way east, with Ithaca getting an amazing 0.07" of snow from the storm. That isn't the model I prefer to use on a day to day basis anyways though, so I didn't put too much stock into. The model I do use takes a bit longer to become available (since it goes out a lot longer), so that is why the map has taken so long. That model seems to be settling in nicely with my earlier predictions now.

The temperatures during this storm are going to generally be in the upper 20s to near 30. Since wet snow doesn't accumulate as much as drier snow, I slightly lowered totals from what I pulled out of thin air earlier. As for snow days, at this time, I would probably say its a good idea to expect school on Friday, but someone in the area will likely wake up with a nice surprise three-day weekend.



My next update will likely not be a blog entry, but just my normal morning forecast update. Just click the banner at the very top of the page to see that.

Here we go!

Winter Storm Watches have (finally) been posted for the grotonweather.com forecast area! I say finally because, if I had been working at the National Weather Service, I would have issued these watches yesterday. All season long, and going back into last season, the models have shown an eastward biased with storms coming up from the south. This is a large part of why a lot of last winter had a lot of hype about snow storms (myself included), only to have the storms start as snow, then change to ice and/or rain. The actual storm tracks have continuously come further west than the models suggest. So when I saw the models showing snow for Eastern New York and New England yesterday, I thought 'Thats going to hit CNY'....and now, it looks like it will.

The NWS has Winter Storm Warnings up for areas just south and east of us. I again have to say though...they are too far east! Even just a day or so ahead of this event, I do not trust the models to place the heaviest snow properly. So, I am diverging from them and the NWS and, while I haven't checked them, likely the local media as well.

So, what is this all about. An area of low pressure is over the southeast. As I said in this morning's discussion, severe thunderstorms, including torandoes, have been ongoing constantly since yesterday morning. This is indicative of the energy of this storm. As this storm comes up the coast, it will interact with the cold air left over from today's front, with the circulation just pulling more of it in. It will be a classic nor' easter...just not super powerful.

Snow will likely begin to fall in our area sometime in the late afternoon tomorrow and become heavy into the night. This storm will be a pretty quick mover, so that will help in keeping totals down. I also think that, even with the eastward biased, the heaviest snow will stay just east of our area. I haven't had enough time to hammer out a snow map yet, but, on a whim, I am thinking 5-9" is likely for most of Tompkins County and Southern Cayuga County, with perhaps 6-10" over Cortland County.

And now...what you all really want to know....will there be school on Friday? After my epic failing on predicting a snow day last February, I considered not even doing snow days this season...but, due to popular request, I will. Since this storm is coming through at night, I would say there is certainly a chance. Just how much of a chance remains to be seen. You will have to keep checking back to find out!

Next projected update: 10-11:30PM: Snow map!

3PM Snow Update

Sorry this update is a bit later than I promised. I ran into some difficulties with making the snow map.

The lake effect has been pretty disorganized through the day as winds haven't really aligned themselves well yet. The models showed this happening relatively well. This disorganization should continue until about sunset, when things really start to get going. I am expecting multiple bands of lake effect to form, with probably two main bands. They will move around a bit overnight, so plenty of areas should see some high snow totals. Here is what I am thinking for amounts by 9AM tomorrow morning:



As with any lake effect event, not every area within each contour will get that amount of snow and the variance from one spot to another can be very large. So, that snow map shows the most likely amounts that are to occur in each area.

Tomorrow, the lake effect should calm down as the day gets into the afternoon. Additional accumulations tomorrow will likely be anywhere from 1-4" in the white and light blue areas, to 3-7" in the darker blue.

Quick Friday Morning Update

Only have time for a quick update this morning. Expect a more complete update this afternoon between 1:30-3.

The Lake Effect Snow Watches have been replaced with warnings and advisories. Which counties are under what is shown below. I honestly can not begin to fathom why Tompkins County is NOT under at least an advisory. The NWS forecast for Ithaca is calling for 1-2" of snow today, then another 4-6" overnight and 2-4" more on Saturday. That is a total of 7-12". That is even beyond advisory criteria...we should be under a warning. The amounts forecast by the NWS for Groton are even higher.



Make sure to tune back this afternoon. I will be updating as soon as I can.

More Lake Effect Coming!

Lake effect snow watches have been posted for 2/3 of the grotonweather forecast area, so I decided to go with a blog entry tonight instead of a normal update.. In general, I think I will mostly blog-update during this event, which means you will see the blog up when you come to the site until Sunday morning. As always, you can get to the main page by cicking the banner at the top of the page, or by following the 'Homepage' link under 'Grotonweather Pages'. The homepage currently isn't updated, but will be later tonight or tomorrow as well though. To the weather now:

A very weak and moisture starved storm system has been moving across the area today. This storm will turn winds more northerly tonight and then northwesterly for Friday and Saturday. The airmass that is moving in is pretty much perfect for a big lake effect snow event. I can not remember the NWS posting Lake Effect Snow Watches for areas so far away from the Lake, yet Southern Cayuga and Cortland Counties are both under watches. Admittedly, this is another one of those situations I so often talk about where something is issued for Southern Cayugan and Cortland, but really applies for Groton and Northeastern Tompkins County as well. That is why, on the map below, I have shaded the counties under the watch, as well as where I think the best shot for heavy snow is.


The exact location of the band(s), as usual, is a tough forecast. Normally with this kind of set up, there seems to be a heavy band across Northern Cayuga County, stretching right through Syracuse and into Madison County. A second, slightly weak band, likes to set up in Southern Cayuga and Northern Cortland counties, clipping the Groton area. Of course, these bands aren't always in the same position, and 10 miles difference can make the difference between 2" or 12".

My best guess at amounts are this: Someone in the northern half of the pink area will get well over a foot, possibly upwards of 2 feet by Sunday morning. In the southern half of the pink, someone will get a foot.

The weather models I had available to me this afternoon were from early this morning. As more recent models come in, I will try to pin down amounts a bit more. Stay tuned!

Nor' Easter, then Lake Effect

Our nor' easter is starting to really wind up off of the New Jersey coast this morning. This has spread a solid area of precipitation from the Finger Lakes, east. Most of what you see on the radar is rain, but it has already changed over to snow in Binghamton and Scranton.


At 9AM, it was 37 in Ithaca, so that, combined with where it is already snowing in Binghamton, has made me expect a change over to snow a bit earlier than I was anticipating last night. This has been reflected in the higher snow amounts on the snow map below. For Groton specifically, since I placed us on the boundary between two areas, I would expect to see 2 or 3, maybe 4 inches downtown, with as much as 5 or 6 on the hills.

This storm should be well on its way out by midnight tonight. However, just as that storm departs, the Lake Effect machine will kick in for Wednesday and Wednesday night before tapering off Thursday. It is still too early to tell where exactly the heaviest lake effect will set up, and whether or not it will remain snow, but here is my best guess for snow intensity at this time:

If you want to help me out with this, as I sit up here in Oswego, it is very hard for me to know what exactly the precipiation type is elsewhere. It would be very helpful if you could leave a comment on here letting me know when you first see snow, no matter where you are. Current data from spotters is very imporatant to meteorologists, so I would really appreciate your observations! Thanks!

First snow of the season!

The past 24 hours have been crazy on the weather models. Yesterday, all but one model, the North American Mesoscale (NAM) were showing an area of low pressure heading into eastern New England, leaving Central New York more or less alone, with lake effect kicking in towards Tuesday night and Wednesday. The NAM, however, brought the storm much closer, giving our area its first accumulating snow of the year. Over the past 24 hours, however, the other models have come into agreement with the NAM, and suddenly we have a snow storm on our hands!

Now, keep in mind, I use 'snow storm' in the context of a normal October. We won't be seeing feet of snow, but for a first snow, this is pretty big. Here is what is happening:

An area of low pressure is beginning to form over North Carolina. Already moisture is spreading northward ahead of this, though most isn't reaching the ground yet. As this storm explodes and heads north, it will pull down some chilly air. That will make the precipitation that starts tonight and for the first part of tomorrow mostly rain. More importantly, however is that this rain will be snow not very high up in the atmosphere. As it melts, it will aid in cooling things down and changing precipitation over to snow. The higher elevations will see the change over first, probably as early as mid to late morning tomorrow. The lower elevations will begin to change over during the afternoon and evening hours. By tomorrow night, everyone should be seeing accumulating snow. Cayuga and Tompkins counties are not under any advisories, but Cortland county, with its higher hill tops, is under a Winter Weather Advisory.

The winds will be gusty with this as well. That, plus the heavy, wet nature of this snow could cause some branches to come down in the higher terrain. Had this come a week or two earlier, when the leaves were still on the trees, we would have some problems. We are lucky though and I am not anticipating many, if any, power outages.

This storm will be a quick mover, so real high totals aren't expected. The map below shows what to expect through 9AM Wednesday. Beyond that, Lake Effect snows will set up, but probably stay to our north, with additional accumulations. Stay tuned!

Late Season Snow Storm Tonight!

A late season snow storm is in store for the area tonight as low pressure moves to our south along a stalled frontal boundary. As this low moves along the front, cold air from Canada will advance south. Meanwhile, the low will throw moisture up into the cold air.



The precipitation will likely start as some rain later this afternoon and tonight. As that cold air moves in, however, it will change the rain to snow overnight. As is often the case with storms at the beginning and end of winter, the higher elevations will end up with more snow than the valleys. The models haven't been doing a good job with this storm so far; just yesterday they had us getting barely anything. However, they seem to be in better agreement with this morning's runs, and looking at the radars to our west, I think we are in for a decent snow. The map below is a little confusing since its hard to incorporate the elevation factor into the map. For downtown Groton, I would say 3 or 4 inches will fall. In the hills surrounding Groton, more like 5 or 6 inches. I think the highest amounts will be in the hills north, east and south of Cortland, especially down towards Binghamton. I wouldn't be surprised to see someone down there get 8-10", maybe even a foot!

What happened...or rather, why it didn't

I've done some thinking and analyzing this morning, and I think I know where I went wrong with my forecasts last night. Lets start by looking at the last radar image I posted.



As you can see by the radar loop from last night, the snow developed mostly over Western Pennsylvania, West Virgina, and Eastern Kentucky, with lake snows further northwest over Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Now we did and are still getting the lake enhanced snow, but the other area of snow never formed. Why? The answer lies in the two images I made below:





The area where the snow broke out was just west of and along the spine of the Appalachian mountains. These mountains acted as a lifting mechanism. As the winds hit the mountains, they had no where to go but up. Rising air cools, and with all the moisture left over from the storm, condensed into clouds and moderate to heavy snow. This is called upslope snow. Since there is not nearly the elevation gradient over our area as there is to the south, there was not enough lift to cause a secondary outbreak outside of the light lake effect. This just goes to show that there are so many factors that go into forecasting, which is why it is such a tough job.

And just in case you were wondering how much snow fell as a result of the upslope effect last night in the mountains, Accuweather.com meteorologist Jesse Ferrell put together a small list of some totals on his blog, which you can see here.

One other note about this storm. I have had over 800 hits on my website since Monday, including 571 yesterday! I just wanted to thank all of you for using my site and making it well worth my time. I really enjoy this and I am so happy that you are finding it useful! Thank you again!

Now, one final thing for now. For the past month or so, I have been working on a new website with a group of meteorology students here at SUNY Oswego. This site will give weather forecasts in a similar format to grotonweather.com for clusters of 2-5 counties. This will be a great source for specific weather information outside of our area. I am both the chief meteorologist of this new site, along with the forecaster for the Finger Lakes region. I have set this site up so that Tompkins, Cortland and Southern Cayuga are in a cluster. What does this mean for the future of grotonweather.com? No changes! I simply using grotonweather.com for that region, keeping everything the same for you. This new site will be launching this weekend and will have the URL www.empirestateweather.com, so check it out come Saturday!