A cold front dropping south out of eastern Canada is already reshaping the day from the northwest — and the contrast between this morning’s 77° start and what the forecast shows over the next 48 hours is the real story. The front clears the region through the morning hours, pulling cooler air down from the north and dropping dewpoints out of that sticky, oppressive range we’ve endured the past several days.
That said, today still runs warm. Highs will reach the upper 80s to low 90s across most of the Finger Lakes — Geneva near 89°, Canandaigua close to 90°, with Watkins Glen and Elmira touching 93° to 94° in their sheltered valleys where the front’s cooling arrives last. Skies stay mainly clear through the afternoon, with only a slight chance of a stray shower — around 10 percent — over western areas. The bigger nuisance today is air quality: NWS Buffalo has an Air Quality Alert in effect through midnight Thursday as smoke from Canadian wildfires moves into the region on a west-northwest flow. Sensitive groups should limit prolonged outdoor activity, especially through afternoon heating hours.
By evening, winds shift and the air noticeably freshens. Lows tonight settle near 74°. Thursday cools further into the low-to-mid 80s, and a genuine break arrives Friday and into the weekend: highs ease into the upper 70s by Saturday, with the best rain chances — near 79 percent — arriving Saturday into Sunday as the upper trough deepens over the Great Lakes. Monday and Tuesday keep temperatures in the low 80s with lingering shower chances through next week.
Weather Center forecast for the Finger Lakes region. Sourced from NWS, Open-Meteo, NWS Area Forecast Discussion, and USGS stream-flow data. Updated 6 AM, noon, and 6 PM ET.