Rain Likely New Year's Eve After Warm Week: Hudson Valley Forecast

HUDSON VALLEY, NY — With the arctic cold retreating, the next chance for precipitation in the region is the New Year's holiday weekend — meaning anyone planning to attend an outside event should bring rain gear.

Temperatures have climbed above 32 degrees Fahrenheit in much of the Hudson Valley Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service, though keeping colder in the Catskills.

It's the start of a warming trend. "A northward bulge in the jet stream from the Plains to the Atlantic coast will allow warm air to stream northward from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes for the second half of the week," said Courtney Travis, AccuWeather senior meteorologist. "The surge of warmer air will make a big difference between the final winter holidays of the year."

Christmas weekend was frigid in the Hudson Valley after a winter storm that killed 50 people nationwide, knocked out power to more than 20,000 people in the region with up to nearly 3 inches of rain and 50 mph wind gusts, and dumped four feet of snow in western New York.

"The storm unleashed its full fury on Buffalo, generating a historic lake-effect snow event with hurricane-force winds and whiteout conditions just before Christmas," Travis said.

As of yesterday, the Erie County Executive had confirmed 27 deaths there.

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In the Hudson Valley by New Year's Day, the high will be in the low to mid 50s, forecasters predict.

However, skies will be mostly cloudy this week except for Thursday, which should be sunny in the daytime before more clouds move in.

On New Year's Day, the chance of rain is 70 percent, the NWS said.

"As we enter the new week and new year, we start off mild which has been well advertised at this point, by the end of that next period is when we begin to monitor the potential for the pattern to begin to turn colder and stormy once again," said Alex Marra of Hudson Valley Weather.