Waiting for Sandy

Frankenstorm. Mega-storm. Monster threat. Rare weather event. Hardly the aliases you'd expect to hear for such a sweet and innocent girl with the name of Sandy.

Did you even know the Europeans were any good at forecasting hurricanes? Neither did we. Apparently, meteorologists are preferring the European model to the American models as they look at the potential track of this storm. It's one thing to lose manufacturing jobs to India and China, but to lose out on hurricane forecasting hurricanes to the Euromets* just ain't right. Aw, c'mon!

About the storm...

The latest track has the storm making landfall over central New Jersey. The more northerly the landfall, the more rain and wind for us. The heaviest winds will be just to the east of the storm center. The heaviest rains will be right on the storm center or just to the west of it. It is almost assured that we will end up on the east side of the storm, and because we live in the beautiful Berkshires, there's this piece of info from NOAA:

GUSTS APPROACHING OR EXCEEDING 70 MPH CANNOT BE RULED OUT FOR THESE HIGH TERRAIN AREAS
SUCH AS THE EASTERN CATSKILLS AND BERKSHIRES.

Yikes. So, maybe we will have some downed trees and power outages after all. Which gets us back to the main subject at hand--will Mega-Super-Monster Storm Sandy cancel school next week? We at GSD say unlikely, but here are three scenarios to consider, in order of likelihoodness.**

1. A few isolated schools have to cancel because of the sporadic nature of power outages. If the heat can't come on and the lunches can't be made, then your school is likely closing for the day.

2. City schools close. Conditions are just too miserable for all the walkers. Party time in North Adams and Pittsfield!

3. The weather hype machine consumes the Berkshires. Meteorologists, town officials, the governor all advise extreme caution and urge people to stay indoors if they can. The County and the Commonwealth shut 'er down for the day.

Again, we see #1 happening and an outside chance of #2 and #3 occurring. We're still about 48 hours away from her ladyship's arrival so there's much more to be said in this space. Until we meet again...

*European meteorologists
**We know, we know. Just carry on.