STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Various parts of New York will experience snow for the first weekend of 2026.
Although New York City will be spared any accumulation, other parts of the state will need to bear with the impacts of both lake effect snow and a clipper storm.
A clipper storm, as defined by the National Weather Service, is a fast-moving storm that drops into the U.S. over the Great Lakes from Alberta, Canada.
The storm is expected to move through the state Saturday night into Sunday morning, according to Matt Benz, a senior meteorologist with AccuWeather. Snow is expected particularly from the New York Thruway on north.
This clipper storm also renews the threat of lake effect snow downwind of Lakes Erie and Ontario going into Sunday, Benz said. Since Monday, several parts of the state along the Great Lakes have been experiencing heavy lake effect snowfall.
Areas near Syracuse and points north of there, as well as ski country south of Buffalo, will likely see lake effect snow Saturday morning, according to Benz. Between Wednesday and Saturday, areas along the Great Lakes could see upwards of a foot of snow.
The snow from the clipper storm will be more “widespread” and could impact areas such as Rochester, Binghamton and areas north and west of the Hudson Valley.
Those areas could see “a little bit of light snow,” however, that accumulation is not expected to amount to much outside of those areas within snow bands coming off of Lake Ontario.
“It [the clipper storm] looks like it’s a pretty quick-moving system, you know, by Sunday morning it looks like it should be exiting the area,” added Benz.
Given the light nature of this snowfall, Benz does not foresee hazardous travel conditions on Sunday.
As for the city, wind conditions will improve this weekend, but temperatures will remain “several degrees below average” with highs generally in the 30s on both Saturday and Sunday, Benz told the Advance/SILive.com.
“But looking dry for the weekend and, more importantly, not as windy,” said Benz. “Like I said, we just had this long stretch of what just seemed like a blustery stretch of weather and it looks like – at least by the weekend – things begin to improve there. High pressure moves overhead and that kind of relaxes the winds a bit, so it should feel maybe not quite as harsh to be outside here as we head into the weekend.”
