Wednesday Storm: Midday Report

Here's a really nice forecast map of the projected snowfall for this storm:

Thanks to Joe Bastardi for this image.

If you zoom in, here's what you'll see:

That purple blob indicates we are in line for 6-10 inches, with the eastern portion of Berkshire County closer to 10 inches and towns on the New York border closer to 6 inches. What's fascinating about this storm is how confident meteorologists are about the range of snowfall we're slated to get. The low end is 4 inches and the high end is 10 inches. For our last storm, our low end was an inch and the high end was 12-14 inches. This means that there is more certainty about the track of the storm, thus raising the chances for widespread snow days tomorrow.

The big factor that will affect our total snow amounts will be if "mesoscale banding" takes place. Essentially, this means bands, or waves, of very intense snow will move out across our area from the center of the storm off the coast. These bands could produce snowfall rates of 1-2 inches per hour. Snow will pile up quickly at that rate if banding occurs.

Schools are already starting to call off afternoon activities. Right now we know that North Adams and Mount Greylock have called off all of their practices, rehearsals, club meetings, and games for the evening. If you know that your school has canceled activities, add them to our Facebook page or in the comment section here.

To repeat from our earlier report: the snow you are seeing right now is not really part of the main storm. That will come tonight, and the intensity will be much higher than it is right now. Expect the heavy snow to start to come down between 7 and 9 PM.