Tuesday School Cancellation Timeline

Even though barely a drop of rain has fallen in the Berkshires as of 2:00 pm Monday, there's no time like the present to begin speculating about the likelihood of another day off for tomorrow.

Here's what's working for us ("us," meaning those who like weather-related school closures):

1. Adams/Cheshire, North Adams, and MCLA are already in the house. Way to take the lead, Northern Berkshires!

2. The longer we go until the peak of the winds and rain shows up, the better.

3. Forecasters have noted that there's a lot of dry air at the ground level. For reasons a little too complicated to go into here, that means the winds will be stronger than normal if we had more typical moister air conditions. Gusts into the 70s are a very real possibility still, which means power outages and unsafe driving conditions, and you know what that means.

4. Power outages are already being reported in the Berkshires: New Ashford and parts of Lanesborough (that we know of).

Normally we would roll out a "here's what's working against us" list. But, you know what? There's not much to put on that list. You could argue that the storm is moving west away from us and will curl northward and around us, but even that storm path puts us in the high wind/damaging wind zone. As long as that high wind warning is still in effect through 11 am tomorrow, we just don't see any superintendents mean or crazy enough to take a chance and make the vulnerable children of our County go to school tomorrow. It just doesn't make any sense! [End hysterical soccer mom voice.]

Tonight's timeline. For the rest of us who still have school tomorrow: Superintendents should begin calling in the day off between the hours of 5:00 and 8:00 pm. We'll announce the cancellations via Twitter tonight as they come in. Just check the right side column of the GSD page (psst--over there, to the right) for the Twitter feed or start following us @GreylockSnowDa1 (don't ask--that's just how it is).

Also, a big thanks to Sandy, for it looks like GSD will go over the 100,000 pageview mark any minute now. And the Facebook following is up to 300. Good work GSD Supporters!