Stormy Week Ahead

Yesterday was nice, wasn't it? Enough snow to make things pretty but not so much that it really interfered with anyone's plans. At the GSD Home Office, we measured this suprise bounty at three inches. We took a field trip to Mid-County during the afternoon and totals looked to be around 1" down there. No reports from South County, but those down there can weigh in with a comment and we'll let everyone know.

The best news is that there is more on the way, with a significant snowfall still in the works for Wednesday night into Thursday. First on the docket is a tidy little disturbance that will move in from the Ohio Valley, reform off the coast, and then make like Santa on his big night. This little guy won't be around for long, but long enough to give us 1-3" in North County and 2-4" in South County. Ideal. All those bad things we said about Old Man Winter just a week ago? We're taking them back.

Thanks to Accuweather for this Christmas gift.

After the Christmas Day system quickly leaves, we'll have about 36 hours of relative quiet before the next storm arrives. Wednesday/Thursday's storm is much more potent and has the potential to dump snow on us. The computer models have set up two scenarios. One has the storm going tracking northeasterly but to our west; the other tracks the storm right along the coast up through the Gulf of Maine.

If the storm takes the first track, we'll start as snow but warm air will get sucked in and it will change over to sleet then rain and eventually back to snow. Office policy dictates that we categorically dislike this computer model and hold a grudge against it. Model two is predicting snow, snow, some sleet, and snow again. Obviously, GSD supports model two (the ECMWF model, a.k.a. "the European model," if you were curious about its technical name).

As for the timing, both models predict precipitation to start late Wednesday night and to last for a good part of the day on Thursday. Travel on that day could be difficult at best, if not almost impossible. We'll definitely monitor this storm carefully even though it can't possibly give us a snow day because so many people will be traveling that day.

Happy Holidays to everyone, and we'll update our two scenarios later tonight or tomorrow early. Cheers!