Get your umbrellas ready – Friday is shaping up to be a soggy day! We’re not talking about record-breaking rain, but certainly a much-needed soaking.
The rain will ramp up before dawn and continue through the evening, but it won’t be non-stop. Expect on-and-off light to moderate rain over the course of the entire day. Take extra caution during the morning and evening commutes; both will be wet.
The morning commute, especially, could be tricky to the north and west of the city thanks to the chance for freezing rain. With temperatures in these areas dropping below freezing by sunrise, liquid rain will freeze upon contact with untreated roads, sidewalks, and bridges, resulting in a thin glaze of ice. If you’re heading outside early Friday morning in one of these freezing spots, assume any wet surfaces you see are ice.
The National Weather Service has issued winter weather advisories across the entire Hudson Valley, Fairfield County, and parts of North Jersey effective for Friday morning – alerting for the potential of up to a tenth of an inch of ice.
It only takes a hundredth of an inch of ice to create treacherous travel conditions, so be wary of “wet-looking” surfaces if you need to drive early Friday morning. That wet road could very well be icy, instead.
By the afternoon and evening, temperatures everywhere will be back above freezing. The relative warmth in combination with the rain will help melt our current snowpack far inland.
This won’t lead to flooding, but it will exacerbate the effects of the rain. Do not be surprised to see ponding on low-lying roadways or areas with poor drainage.
While Friday will certainly bring its share of commuting headaches, the rain we get is desperately needed.
2025 has been off to an exceptionally dry start in Central Park. In fact, this month is currently the driest January on record for the city. Less than half an inch of liquid equivalent precipitation has fallen so far. Friday’s rain could double that amount. It won’t be enough to erase January’s rain deficit, but every bit helps.
The tri-state area is still under the drought conditions that began last fall. And despite our decently soggy December, this dry January has marked a step backward as we’ve seen the expansion of areas under the “severe drought” designation, particularly further south.
There is still a long way to go before we fully erase the drought from our region, but Friday’s rain is at least a step in the right direction.
The good news: the start of February promises a couple more rain and/or snow chances as early as next week. These won’t be big storms, but they’ll at the very least help February get off to a wetter start than we had in January.
