Storm 10.29.11: Would It Have Been a Snow Day?

Let's just take a moment and consider if this storm had fallen on Sunday instead of Saturday. Would we or would we not have had a snow day on Monday?

Courtesy of Accuweather.

For the Northern Berkshires, all evidence points to a chance of a two-hour delay with very little chance of a snow day. The radar indicates the snow will fall steadily for the next few hours but will wind down rapidly around midnight or 1 a.m.--a much shorter time window than the forecasters originally predicted. Given the gap between the end of the storm and the start of school, snow removal crews would have had plenty of time to make the roads passable. This storm, however, does have a "surprise/novelty factor" that may have made it more snow day worthy than, let's say, a storm in mid-March. Add 10% to the snow day chance column. (In a way it's ruining the "surprise/novelty factor" for an early or mid-November storm. Thank you very little, Mr. Late October Storm.)

The heaviest snow has fallen in the mid- and Southern Berkshires so those school districts would definitely been in delay mode or had no school. The real x-factor this evening is the wind, which will pick up and cause many power outages. If we do get many outages, then the chance for a delay and/or a snow day would have improved dramatically, perhaps into the 40% chance range.

All in all, the storm delivered more snow in the Southern Berkshires than the North and just about came through as predicted. Here are snow reports from Channel 13 (as of 8:30 pm on Saturday):

BERKSHIRE

Peru (MA): 17"
Great Barrington: 15"

Savoy (MA): 12"

Pittsfield (MA): 12", 10"
Lanesborough (MA): 8.5"

 We're definitely in a stormy pattern and we'll need to keep our eyes and ears open for storm developments next week. Right now it looks mostly dry, but we'll stay on the case.