Winter Storm Warning for No. Berkshire County

[6 PM Update: Southwest Vermont Supervisory SU will be releasing students early tomorrow due to the Winter Storm Warning forecast for Bennington County. We'll start a list later tonight only if more districts call in. See our afternoon report below.]

Boy, that escalated quickly.

The National Weather Service in Albany has issued a Winter Storm Warning--not a Watch--for Berkshire County. Snow days and early releases are in play for Friday. The window for this storm is 2 AM Friday to noon on Saturday.

Colder air is expected to deepen as the storm moves up the coast and intensifies. The rain we are experiencing right now is the leading edge of the storm, and we will see a gradual changeover to wet snow anywhere between 3 AM and noon Friday, depending on the elevation of your location. Some schools do have a shot at a snow day tomorrow.

Because the temperature has been over freezing during the day for the last week or so, it will take much longer for the snow to accumulate on the roads. For this reason we think students should have little problem getting to their schools in Northern Berkshire tomorrow morning.

But if the snow begins to accumulate on the roads before the morning commute, or Superintendents are worried about accumulating snow during the day, then we might see a snow day or two from this list of schools: Hancock, Florida, Savoy, Central Berkshire, Adams-Cheshire, and perhaps even North Adams and Mount Greylock.

In all of Berkshire County we should see accumulating snow at some point on Friday For that reason, we can not rule out a few early releases for tomorrow.

This storm will impact high elevation towns the most. NWS Albany is expecting 5 to 10 inches of snow for Northern Berkshire with some higher elevations getting over a foot. Southern Berkshire County could see 4-6 inches. The bulk of this snow should fall Friday afternoon and into the evening, if we were to generalize for the entire County.

Be aware that the past history with these late season storms indicates that it will be a bust. But--there's always a but--should it do what meteorologists think it is going to do, some group of students will have some time off from school tomorrow.

The GSD Office will be kicking it into high gear tomorrow morning with updates on the storm, cancellations and/or delays.

If you can make sense of this snow onset map, then you're a better person than we are. Good luck with it.