First Forecast of 2018

Happy New Year, dear readers. It is a balmy -16 degrees at the GSD Home Office this morning, but there's no wind at the moment, so we've got that, which is nice. We do have a Wind Chill Warning in effect, though, through 1 PM today, and we bet that gets extended. If you need to go out, layer up.

New Year's greetings from Old Man Winter

A few days ago we hinted at a big midweek storm. While we do think we'll see a few inches from that storm, mostly it's going out to sea. During the day on Thursday we'll see light snow, but unfortunately it does not look like it will impact the length of the school day. We might see a few games canceled in the evening, but the chance of that happening is still relatively low. It will be a very big storm, but for Down East Maine, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick.

The big impact of this storm on the Berkshires will be on the temperatures in its aftermath. As it lifts well to our northeast, bitterly cold air will wrap around it (counterclockwise) and flood into our area. This means that on Friday, the high temperature will be somewhere around 0. On Saturday, the high temperature could be in the negative numbers. This is unusual and should not be taken lightly.

Low temps this weekend will be around -15 degrees each morning.

The GSD Staff is sure that you are wondering about freeze delays. Unfortunately, the timing isn't working for us. There is no question that some districts would delay the start of the school day with temperature readings of 15 degrees below zero. But the lowest temps were expecting on any school day mornings is 1 or 2 degrees below zero on Friday.

We'll keep an eye on the Thursday storm for certain. It's close enough to our region that a change in the track could give us 3-6 inches of snow instead of the 1-2 inches that are predicted right now.

We wish we had better news for this week. But for the long-term forecast we are hearing about a return to a more active storm pattern after this first week of 2018.