Hurricane Katrina promises to bring winds -- and rains -- of change to much of New York state early this week. And while the whole state should see rainfall, the storm should help convert one of central New York's driest months on record into one with more typical precipitation stats, according to Mark Wysocki, state climatologist at the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University. Katrina will open up moisture from the Gulf of Mexico that has been kept away from the state by a jet stream, which consistently moves storms from west to east across southern Canada.

The powerful hurricane is producing sustained winds of 135 mph as it continues to move inland along the U.S. Gulf Coast. The current projected path will bring the remnants of Katrina into Western Ohio by Wednesday morning, and rain will enter New York state late Monday night. Rain will continue until Thursday morning with rainfall amounts of 2 to 3 inches across extreme western New York and 1 to 2 inches across central New York.

While many in the region, especially farmers, have been praying for rain, the load that Katrina will bring isn't exactly what the doctor ordered.

The projected large amount of rainfall will be too much over a short period of time on extremely dry land, making absorption unlikely. This could lead to flooding conditions across western and central New York, Tuesday through Thursday morning. And the rain will arrive too late to do any good for much of the state's agriculture -- especially the corn crop -- which has suffered with drought since July. So far, the month of August has been one of the driest on record for many cities in upstate New York, but Hurricane Katrina will change that ranking fast.

The silver lining is that, as the remnants of Katrina move into eastern Quebec, it will still have a strong counterclockwise rotation, which will pull down drier air and create seasonal temperatures from central Canada into our area for the weekend.