Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Awaiting the Arrival of Moonracer

A massive wall of precipitation is just to our south; it appears that it will not arrive for another few hours...just in time for most high school buses to roll out.

The temperature is at 32 at the GSD Home Office, so the initial burst of precipitation should be frozen.

That is one impressive wall of moisture headed our way...
Because snow totals are not supposed to be that high (with all the sleet and rain), the NWS did not move our Winter Storm Watch to a Warning. Instead, Berkshire County has a Winter Weather Advisory with 2-6 inches of snow forecasted.

To complicate matters this morning, the NWS has issued a "Special Weather Statement" about the threat of freezing drizzle in advance of the main precipitation from the storm. We're not seeing any of it up here at GSD, but its arrival could further complicate the morning commute.

As for the GSD prediction:

In South County, we think the changeover to rain will be fairly rapid and that the afternoon ride home will be fine as long as road crews have time to do their thing. Perhaps a delay is the right way to go. The only concern--and it is a major one--is that it is still sleeting heavily at 9:30 when it's time to get to school. The computer models are saying one thing; local observation is indicating another.

In North County, the snow/sleet will start later and last later. It still does look like the changeover to all rain will take place before school lets out for the day. It's an extremely close call. Bolder Superintendents will go without any change to the school day; safer Supers will make the headache go away and cancel school.

Here's our list of school day cancellations. We will update throughout the morning--hopefully. (Note that Florida upgraded their release to a full snow day. Wise move.)

Decisions are coming in fast and furious right now.

CLOSED:

Mohawk Trail
Florida Elementary
Stamford
Central Berkshire (again!)
Southern Berkshire (upgrade)

DELAY:

Adams/Cheshire
BArT
Northern Berkshire

EARLY DISMISSAL:

Berlin, NY



3 comments:

  1. Just slid on black ice patches in Pittsfield. Be careful out there!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am new to this blog. What does "Northern Berkshire" mean?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Northern Berkshire is McCann Technical.

    ReplyDelete