Storm Esme: Late Evening Report

We've been down this road before, dear Followers of the Flake. We should know better than to allow ourselves to believe in a snow day this time of year.

As we've noted in the past several posts, this storm is not behaving in a manner we find appealing. We still do have WSWs and WWAs for the entire county, but something about this storm feels a bit off, doesn't it?

Optimism.

Here's what we like:

1. The amount of moisture is very good. Even though the storm is losing some of its energy as it splits (the western part of the split is still dumping many inches of snow out in the Midwest), it's still potent. Even if we hit the middle of the WWA prediction, we're still looking at 4-5" (for Northern Berkshire).

2. It's slow-moving. (And take your time, Esme--we're in no rush)

3. The worst of the storm should hit slightly before or during the Wednesday commute. Dy-no-mite!

4. We also have a Wind Advisory--gusts exceeding 50 mph from 5 AM to 3 PM on Wednesday. With snow-covered roads, that wind's strong enough to push a car or even a bus off the road! Yikes!

Pessimism.

Here's what we don't like:

1. It's supposed to start snowing in an hour or so and it's still 36 degrees at the GSD Home Office in Williamstown.

2. These elevation storms often just lead to a slushy mess for valley locales.

3. We just had vacation.

4. These later-in-the-season storms often don't pan out (see "weekend, last").

It's safe to say we're confidently unconfident about this storm. We're sticking with our very wishy-washy predictions, so we'll just have to hope that we will be wrong.