Utica, New York 7 Day Weather Forecast

Wx Forecast - Wx Discussion - Wx Aviation

620
FXUS61 KBGM 290553
AFDBGM

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Binghamton NY
153 AM EDT Mon Jun 29 2026

.WHAT HAS CHANGED...
No major changes to the upcoming forecast as model blends
remain consistent from run to run. Continued to keep dew points
a little lower than modeled for mid week, and lowered high
temperatures slightly as well given potential cloud cover and
pop up afternoon thunderstorms.

&&

.KEY MESSAGES...
1) Heat and humidity will increase through this week leading to
elevated heat index values.

2) Along with the heat and humidity, Tuesday through the end of
the week could have daily isolated to scattered thunderstorms,
some of which could be strong with a potential for localized
torrential rainfall.

&&

.DISCUSSION...
KEY MESSAGE 1...

A strong upper ridge is expected to build into the Eastern US this
week, bringing a surge of hot temperatures and high moisture.
Temperatures in the 90s and dewpoints from the upper 60s to mid-70s
are exhibiting a high confidence of occurring. That`s the easy part.
The risk of exceeding heat thresholds is where the decisions become
hazy. Baseline NBM blends continue to have a solid splatter of mid
70s for dew points which is likely a high bias, especially where
westerly component winds are a drying downslope off the Allegany
Plateau. Will lean on the current forecast which has already
modified the NBM for local dry adiabatic mixing and climatology. One
thing that could help keep high temperatures from reaching their
fullest advertised potential, preventing upper 90s and even a
few 100s air temperatures in urban areas will be afternoon
convection. Unsettled conditions along a cold front dropping out
of Canada this weekend will bring minor relief from the high
heat and lower dew points a bit as well.

KEY MESSAGE 2...

Chances of Thunderstorms have been kept for each afternoon from
Tuesday onwards as the dew points climb along with the temperatures.
MLCAPE rises to 1000 to 2000 J/kg each afternoon. Right now,
triggers for storms are tough to pin down as we are near the NE edge
of the ridge with shortwaves that will be riding around the
perimeter of the ridge...mostly to our north and east. Forecast
soundings do keep come CIN and indicate a small temperature cap
between 850-700 mb but it is not much. 700 mb temperatures hovering
between 10C-12C are the poor man`s cap indicator as well and we are
covered by those temperatures especially Weds-Thurs. So barring
remnants from upstream MCS complexes propagating southward into the
low level moisture axis within the ridge, we should mainly see
limited activity as storms may be able to fire without a trigger
over higher terrain, then outflow from those could continue to
support additional storms into the early evening.

Tuesday still looks the most interesting for storms with some
forcing as an Elevated Mixed Layer is moving through, leading to
modeled 700-500 mb lapse rates near 8C/km. Shear is lacking (<30
knots) for a bigger event as well as a definable trigger, but
many models at least fire off some convection...although latest
runs of the GFS/NAM and ICON have trended to a lower potential
or at least seem to be tracking storm solutions further north
from the core of the ridge. Still have to keep the PoP numbers
up during this period given the local potential noted above but
am not too confident about the numerous or likely coverage.
Downburst will be possible with initial convection given the
CAPE and Mid Level Lapse rates. Forecast soundings also show
warm cloud depths over 10K feet with potential for training
given flow aloft so a flash flood risk is there as well high
high rainfall rates that could approach two to three inches an
hour within the deeply saturated airmass.

The threat for downburst lessens and becomes more isolated Wednesday
onwards as mid level lapse rates trends back towards 6C/km but the
CAPE will be high each afternoon but offset by the capping. Low
level flow and mid level flows align better later in the week for
training storms so if we do get storms to fire or if the ridge does
not build as far into New England with the ring of fire closer to
our CWA, we could be dealing with a persistent flash flood risk,
especially as deeper synoptic forcing tends to increase as the ridge
breaks down.

&&

.AVIATION /06Z MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY/...
Building ridge of high pressure will maintain VFR conditions
through 06Z Tuesday, with the exception of a few terminals with
patchy valley fog in the few to several hours leading up to
dawn. As is often the case with these scenarios, confidence is
highest at KELM for restrictive conditions even to around
airport minimums especially 10Z-12Z period. KITH already has
signs of mist prior to 06Z, so fluctuations into IFR is
anticipated at times. At least light mist is figured for KAVP,
but confidence is low for whether it actually manages anything
worse than MVFR such as already occurred to the south at KHZL;
valley fog may be too shallow for that.

Outlook:

Tuesday through Friday...Mostly VFR, but some restrictions will
be possible with isolated to scattered showers and
thunderstorms each afternoon as well as valley fog at least for
KELM in predawn hours each morning given humid environment;
possibly others if prior rains occur.

&&

.CLIMATE...
Current High Temperature Records:

6/30: BGM - 92 (1964), SYR - 94 (1971), AVP - 97 (1964)
7/1: BGM - 90 (2018), SYR - 94 (2018), AVP - 95 (2018)
7/2: BGM - 92 (1966), SYR - 96 (1963), AVP - 98 (1966)

Forecasts for 7/1 and 7/2 are at or near the daily records.

&&

.BGM WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
PA...None.
NY...None.

&&

$$

DISCUSSION...JAB
AVIATION...ES
CLIMATE...MDP