Winter Storm Watch for Wednesday (Already)

Introducing...Storm Elle! At 4:27 AM on Monday, the NWS announced a Winter Storm Watch for Wednesday, which will start early in the day and last until early Thursday. The GSD Staff originally thought the brunt of her would hit on Thursday, but now Wednesday is big day in question this week.

Essentially, we have a nor'easter heading our way for the day on Wednesday. The biggest concern we have about this storm is its timing. It should start early enough in the day on Wednesday to cause Superintendents to call in snow days, but their decisions will have to be based on faith that the forecasts will be correct.

The liquid forecasted for this storm should also be sufficient for a snow day. Meteorologists are expecting 9 or more inches of snow within a 24-hour period, which precipitated (zing!) the relatively early Watch announcement.

Here's a lovely looking map:

Right now the GSD conventional wisdom on this storm is that we'll get 6-8" that will start out as very wet snow and then become gradually drier. When it starts snowing, we will be around the freezing point--by the end of the storm on Thursday we'll be down in the teens. And there will be much blowing and drifting of snow on Thursday, which means there's a chance--maybe even a distinct possibility--that we will have the unprecedented, coveted "triple double"--the back-to-back snow day for the third time this season!

More thoughts, one good and one bad. We like the early call of the Watch. That means models are in agreement, and we'll almost assuredly see the Watch upgraded to the Warning as early as tonight (but most likely on Wednesday). Now the bad: March storms are fickle creatures. Historically, they are much harder to predict accurately.

There will much more to say about Storm Elle in the next 48 hours. Things are, however, trending in the right direction for the snow day hounds out there.