1st Storm Is In The Books

A clean sweep for snow days for Berkshire County today! We definitely were cautious with the Confidence Meter, but most in our office had a good feeling about this first storm. The slightly late timing and the concern about mixed precipitation in South County were the key reasons we did not ramp up the Meter to 100%.

The storm did underperform slightly. We got 4.5" at the GSD Home Office in Williamstown. The storm ended up right in the middle between the Euro and the North American (GFS) models. The Euro continues to be just a little more accurate from year to year so we'll continue to feature that model when we are looking at potential snow days.

Observed snow totals as of 9 PM Tuesday.

We are now looking at some kind of disturbance for next Thursday and Friday. The models are not in agreement but it looks like we could see snow anywhere from late Wednesday night to Friday afternoon. It does not look organized like today's storm was, so 1-3" may be our best bet for snow at the end of next week.

Get ready for the cold. Friday morning is going to be brutal--we could see negative numbers--and the high on Friday will barely get into the 20s.

Thanks for reading, and we'll have more info about next week's snow over the weekend.

Cancellations for Tuesday, Dec. 2

Last update: 7:34 AM, Tuesday

A leading edge dusting has fallen, but the heavy stuff is not coming down for a few hours yet. Expect moderate snow to begin between 7 and 8 AM. Heavier snow could fall in the afternoon as some locations will get close to 10 inches. Enjoy your day off from school!

SNOW DAY:

Bement School

Berkshire Arts and Technology

Berkshire Community College

Berkshire Country Day

Berkshire Hills

Berkshire Montessori

Berkshire Waldorf

Central Berkshire

Clarksburg
Emma Miller

Farmington River

Florida

Hancock

Hillcrest Academy

Hoosac Valley

Lee

Lenox

MCLA

McCann

Mount Greylock

North Adams

Pine Cobble

Pittsfield

Richmond Consolidated

Rowe Elementary

Southern Berkshire

Southwest Vermont SU

First Storm (Dec. 2) Eve

The National Weather Service in Albany has issued a Winter Storm Warning for all of Berkshire County for Tuesday. This is the development we were looking for and should ensure that most students in the County have a day off or shortened day of school.

More and more the models are starting to resemble each other. The Euro is still the party-pooper of the group, showing a 3-4" storm for our area. The two North American models--the short-term NAM and the longer term GFS--as well as the Euro's AI-enhanced model are all showing 6+ inches of snow.

Courtesy of NWS Albany.

The timing of the start of the storm is the only real negative. The good folks over at NWS Albany are saying it will start at 7 AM for all of Berkshire County. One great positive is it looks like plenty of cold air will be in place. Right now on Monday it may be in the low 30s where you live, but the mercury will steadily drop into the mid and low 20s as we move toward the morning commute hours and the onset of the snow.

In terms of the calculus of the superintendents, they are in a slightly tough spot. You never want to call the first snow day of a season and have it be a bust. But then again, you don't want to send children to school only to have them on buses when the storm really starts to ramp up in the early afternoon. And the early release is problematic for families. Some of those problems can be mitigated by calling it the night before, but there's still risk that 2-3 inches of snow will be on the ground at the time of the early release. You can see that the easiest decision is to just call the day off and hope we don't have too many storms later this winter.

We're adjusting the Confidence Meter higher as a result of the upgrade to the Warning. We'll likely post again this evening in the hope that some Superintendents phone in the snow day this evening.