Storm 10.29.11: Winter Storm Watch ?!&!

Absurd.

The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Watch that will begin tomorrow at noon and continue until 6 am on Sunday. The storm is only predicted to drop anywhere from 2" to 12" on our area, but because there are so many leaves on the trees (green ones, too), the NWS decided to break out the Watch. Here's what they're saying:

WE ARE NOT GOING TO TAKE ANY CHANCES WITH THIS STORM. THERE COULD
BE A MAJOR SOCIETAL IMPACT ACROSS A LARGE PORTION OF THE FCST
AREA.

("FCST" stands for "forecast," but you, being one of the many highly literate GSD Followers, probably figured that one out on your own.)

Major societal impact? What in the Sam Hill is going on around here? The GSD Staff loves what we do, but this is just a little too much too soon. Plus, we in no way condone Saturday storms.

Doom and gloom, from Accuweather. GSD finds this projection just a bit hyperbolic.

 Hopefully, the storm will go the way of the big April Fool's storm from last spring. You can't help but think that we only have so many inches to work with this winter, and we don't want to waste them on a Saturday storm before we've even put the Halloween costumes away.

At worst we'll see 6-7" inches of heavy wet snow. If that happens, we're going to see plenty of power outages and cancellations of events on Sunday. Realistically, the Staff agrees that we'll get about 4 inches of wet, greasy snow. It's best to make Saturday evening plans that don't involve driving.

We'll update later with a few snow forecast maps.