Happy New Year!

One our staff members has a New Year's tradition that is supposed to bring good fortune and prosperity to you for the upcoming year.

In his words:

My grandmother always told us to put money onto the front porch before we went to bed on New Year's Eve. In our pajamas we would dig around for spare change around the house and then wrap up the money in tinfoil and put it out on the steps. It was important that each person make his own little packet of money. 

We encourage you to follow this tradition to increase your fortune, but we'd also like you to do a special GSD twist on the tradition. Alongside your bundle of change, please put an ice cube in tinfoil so we can have winter weather good luck for the upcoming year. This will ensure the snowiest January on record for sure.

As for a weather forecast, here's what you can expect through the first weekend of the new year:

Cold weather will persist but we'll see a slight warmup in the temps starting tomorrow, the first day of 2015. We could see a few snow showers on Friday. Then, Saturday night we could see several inches of snow before the precipitation turns over to rain. The storm is going to disappointingly track to our west, but we're pleased to report that the initial burst of precipitation will be all snow and it could be substantial. Unfortunately, the snow window looks like it's going to be from midnight to 4 AM (Saturday into Sunday) so we really won't even be able to go out and play in it. Driving conditions could be messy on Sunday morning. The snow will change to light rain for Sunday, and we will be back up into the mid 40s on Sunday.

We'll see more snow than mixed precipitation with this storm. Thanks to Accuweather for the graphic.

After Sunday, we could see an Alberta Clipper scoot through our area Monday night into Tuesday. Alberta Clippers rarely bring lots of snow. We don't expect more than an inch or two with this small storm.

The good news is that the cold air will be firmly in place next week, setting up the possibility for all snow events down the road. We'll have to wait and see.

Happy New Year! Keep working on those song parodies for the True North/GSD Writing Contest. We'll report more about Saturday's storm should any new information spring up.