Delay Threats Early This Week; Big Snow Sunday?

Inch by inch we're making progress toward a "real winter." We have two minor disturbances to contend with early this week and then possibly a major disturbance for the weekend.

Not one but two chances for delays exist this week. Both would be in the low probability category, as there isn't much moisture to work with. The first chance comes Tuesday morning as snow will move into the Berkshires in the early morning hours and should still be coming down during the morning commute. We're only looking at 1-2 inches, so a Superintendent will have to be very cautious to want to take away precious classroom time for such a minor snow event. Schools in the northern half of the county have a better chance for delays as this storm will impact counties to our west and north in a much more significant manner.

"Storm" might be too strong a word for this minor disturbance.

We have a slightly better chance for delays on Wednesday because more snow is expected. A low pressure system is supposed to strengthen off the coast of New England tomorrow night. There could be enough wrap-around energy to give us heavy snow periods late on Tuesday night, totaling up to 3 inches for the Berkshires, especially in higher terrain. There are a lot of ifs with this storm, so again we don't think there will be many, if any, delays on Wednesday morning, but the chance exists only if the best case scenario develops. Again, North County schools' chances are greater than South County schools' for two-hour delays.

But all the buzz this week will be about a Sunday nor'easter. The North American model is predicting it, but the European is less certain. Typically, the Euro does a better job so we really must caution you not to get too excited about a big storm, even though some runs of the NA model are showing a foot for the Berkshires. Many pieces of energy need to click into place for us to get "the big one" we've been craving for the last few months.

Let's see how we make out over the next few days before we get too excited about a storm for Sunday, especially because the Sunday storm will likely be over before Monday and won't yield snow days.