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Briarcliff Begins To Dry Out After Nearly 3 Inches Of Rain Falls

WESTCHESTER COUNTY, N.Y. -- After "we hit the jackpot" for heavy rains to start this week, Westchester County is drying out and is looking forward to a stretch of sunny, warm weather, according to a local meteorologist.

Westchester is in store for clearing and cooling after seeing nearly 3 inches of rain Monday and Tuesday.

Westchester is in store for clearing and cooling after seeing nearly 3 inches of rain Monday and Tuesday.

Photo Credit: Flickr

A total of 2.99 inches of rain fell in White Plains, with 1.54 inches on Monday and 1.45 inches on Tuesday.

"It's certainly not a record, but it's very impressive," said Gary Lessor, assistant to the director of meteorological studies and the Weather Center at Western Connecticut State University.

Wednesday became partly sunny, with a high near 80. Thursday will be sunny again with a high near 80.

This week's series of storms was the second run in July of successive heavy rains. Fireworks fans remember the rainy events from July 3 to July 4. In those storms, about 2.5 inches of rain was recorded in the area.

Forecasters had predicted a series of big storms would occur this summer, Lessor said.

He blames the weather pattern on cold air blanketed over the upper Midwest that is creating a zone on the East Coast for storms to develop from western New York to Boston. "That is where we thought most of the heavy precipitation would be," Lessor said. "And that is playing out very well this summer."

That cold air maintained across the Midwest is also causing the West Coast to sizzle, holding the heat in places from Seattle in the 90s to the deserts in the Southwest in the triple digits, he said.

Temperatures are heating up across the Fairfield County region -- averaging 1.1 degrees above normal for July, Lessor said.

"That is surprising because precipitation usually holds down the warm temperatures," he said. "But we have been getting a full day of warming, with the showers later in the day. And it's not cooling down as much in the nighttime."

This bubble of cold in the Midwest will lift northward in next few days, stabilizing the weather pattern in Westchester County until at least July 24 to July 25.

"Following that we could see another stormy period," Lessor said.

"July has been a very wet month," he said.

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