8.28: Irene Coming to Town?

It seems just a smidge silly to be getting all worked up about hurricane given the location of the GSD-following area, but duty calls. It feels a lot like getting excited about an East Coast earthquake, which one GSD Staffer thought was the cleaning staff really working over a vacuum in the GSD front lobby. Regardless, even though our expertise is the nor'easter, we do dabble in hurricanes.

Do you remember Hurricane Floyd in 1999? That's right don't because its impact on the Berkshires was negligible. As exciting as both a hurricane and an earthquake in the same week would be (locusts are arriving on Wednesday--we just know them as students! ba-dum-dum!--be here all week!), don't expect much as this storm starts to push eastward. We've checked with our usual gang of experts, and we are likely to see some rain on Sunday with a few strong breezes. In snow terms, we talking 4-5 inches not the 12+ inch variety of storm. And really, that's just fine with us as it still is summer vacation.

From our friends at Accuweather.com

We'll keep an eye on it but right now we think Irene will head out of the area faster on Sunday and more to the east.

Long Range Forecast -- August 2011

Greetings, GSD Followers! We hope your summer is going well (or went well as many of you will be checking out this post some time in October or early November), and if you haven't done so yet--here comes the unapologetic plug--you should check out GSD Selects, our new auxiliary pop culture site.

We've been culling through our go-to websites for long-range weather forecasting, and it looks like there is a heated debate in the meteorological community about what kind of winter we're going to have for 2011-12. Some think we're going to revert back to an El Nino winter, while others think we're on board for a mild to moderate La Nina winter. Just to recap: El Nino bad, La Nina good. If you need a refresher, as we're sure you do, head back to this post from last winter. It explains the El Nino/La Nina difference in relatively clear terms.

So, you're asking, what is GSD's official position at this point in the late summer of 2011? We're officially promoting the mild La Nina winter, which means we will see our far share of storms. Hoo--yippee--ray! The GSD staff should be busy this year, and we ought to have enough snow storms, ice storms, and warnings and advisories to keep everyone on pins and needles all winter long.

Check out this map from our new fave website, weatheradvance.com:

If this map is accurate--and theirs was very accurate this time last year--then we should be in for a typically old school awesome New England winter.

We'll try to give everyone a better long range forecast in late September or October. Until then, enjoy your summer, get your summer reading done, and think snow. It's never too early.