059
FXUS61 KCLE 162018
AFDCLE

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Cleveland OH
318 PM EST Sun Nov 16 2025

.SYNOPSIS...
High pressure moves in from the west, ending the lake effect on
Monday. This will be followed by an upper level low Tuesday
through Tuesday night. High pressure and a warming trend for the
end of the week before turning unsettled again Friday into the
weekend.

&&

.NEAR TERM /THROUGH MONDAY/...
Developing band of lake effect occurring today with connections off
Lake Superior, Lake Huron, and Lake Erie in a persistent northwest
surface/low level flow regime. This will continue into the overnight
period as temperatures drop, ending Monday afternoon as the feed is
cut off with high pressure moving into the Great Lakes from the
west. There are three main factors at play with this precipitation
for the near term forecast period. The first is the transition to
snow with cold air advection currently taking place. Snow is falling
in low dewpoint air in NW PA at this hour, where wet bulbing is
occurring, but it will likely take until after 00Z this evening for
appreciable accumulations to start as temperatures fall into the 20s
overnight. The second will be slight west/east oscillations of the
band over the entire period. The variability will not be all that
much, but just perhaps enough to keep a distribution of the snowfall
and totals down slightly. That said, this lake effect event only
clips the far eastern portion of the NW PA counties...further west
in those counties, storm total snow is less than an inch, where as
the max further east is right around 6 inches. Finally, the
immediate lakeshore areas, with warm surface lake water
temperatures, will have trouble with accumulations, so the Winter
Weather Advisory will remain in place for the larger inland portion
of Erie and Crawford for the western CWA.

&&

.SHORT TERM /MONDAY NIGHT THROUGH TUESDAY NIGHT/...
Southern stream upper low traverses in from the west Monday night
into Tuesday with a shield of precipitation in the mid level
isentropic lift. Looking at the forecast soundings, does not
entirely look like a mixed precipitation/freezing rain certainty,
and will go with snow to rain/snow mix to rain on the front end for
this issuance. But this will need to be watched as temperatures
prior to onset Monday night likely start in the upper 20s. Light
snow amounts only into Tuesday. Temperatures then climb into the
lower 40s with rain, exiting early Tuesday night with high pressure
back in play by Wednesday morning.

&&

.LONG TERM /WEDNESDAY THROUGH SUNDAY/...
Warming trend for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday as upper ridging
builds over the northern Gulf Coast. Dry warm front Thursday as
850mb temperatures make a substantial jump, with near 60F in places
by Friday. Meanwhile, an upper low over the desert southwest along
with one over the southern Canadian prairies will track eastward as
the progressive pattern for the CONUS continues onward. Cold front
from the northern system moves in late Friday while phasing with the
developing Colorado low from the southern stream system. This will
bring unsettled, rainy conditions heading into the weekend, and
likely cooling back down Saturday and Sunday.

&&

.AVIATION /18Z Sunday THROUGH Friday/...
Mainly VFR across the TAF sites this afternoon, though brief
drops to MVFR and IFR vsbys will continue to be possible in
bands of rain and/or snow showers into this evening,
particularly at YNG/ERI. Confidence continues to be low in the
placement of an intense and narrow lake effect snow band
impacting ERI late tonight into Monday morning, so kept the
prob30 mention at this time. Otherwise, skies will gradually
clear from west to east late tonight into Monday.

Winds are generally out of the northwest this afternoon, 15 to
20 knots with gusts of 30 to 32 knots. A few isolated wind gusts
up to 35 knots cannot be ruled out through the rest of today and
overnight, particularly at CLE/ERI. Winds will slightly
diminish to 10 to 15 knots with gusts of 20 to 25 knots
overnight into Monday.

 Outlook...Non-VFR likely areawide in rain and/or snow on
Tuesday. Non-VFR likely to return late Thursday through Friday
in widespread rain.

&&

.MARINE...
Rough marine conditions will continue across Lake Erie through
Monday with northwest flow of 25 to 30 knots and periodic gusts
up to 40 knots possible, especially through this evening.
Northwest winds will begin to taper to 10 to 15 knots by Monday
night, becoming east to southeast on Wednesday, around 10 knots.
Southerly winds will begin to increase by Thursday night into
Friday ahead of an approaching low pressure system, 15 to 20
knots.

&&

.CLE WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
OH...None.
PA...Winter Weather Advisory until 1 PM EST Monday for PAZ002-003.
MARINE...Small Craft Advisory until 4 AM EST Monday for LEZ142-143.
     Small Craft Advisory until 4 PM EST Monday for LEZ144-145.
     Small Craft Advisory until 10 PM EST Monday for LEZ146>149.

&&

$$

SYNOPSIS...26
NEAR TERM...26
SHORT TERM...26
LONG TERM...26
AVIATION...Kahn
MARINE...Kahn