Big Storm To Start February?

Six years ago yesterday, the city of Boston began an incredible snowy period. In a mere 20 days--from January 26 to February 15--Boston received 84.1 inches of snow. That's 7 feet of snow.

The reason for that brief trip down memory lane is to remind us that there's a lot of winter left, and despite the meager snow that seemingly has fallen so far, we're actually right around or normal totals for the end of January

The good news is that we're trending in the right direction with our snow totals. We picked up close to 6" of nuisance snow all last week. Yesterday and this morning, we added another 4-6" (depending on your elevation). We had a long dry period at the start of this month, but conditions could change drastically soon.

Right now, the northeast meteorology world is all abuzz about a possible nor'easter for Monday and Tuesday of next week. Today's runs of the models--especially the Euro--is showing a monster storm for southeastern New England, eastern Mass, and southern New Hampshire and Maine.

Check out the European model for Tuesday:

Euro model forecast for the Monday/Tuesday storm. This will assuredly change in the next few days.

That, my friends, is a big one. Even though this prediction does not show a direct hit for the Berkshires, it still would be a sizable storm. And a 50-100 mile shift northward in the track of the storm would probably double the snow totals you see predicted here. Fingers crossed.

But then there's the North American model, which has a 50/50 chance of being correct. Here's what it is predicting:

The North American model takes the storm further south and east, as of now.

The North American model really isn't that different from the Euro. It also shows a possible dry slot for the Berkshires, but it pushes the center of the storm further south and east, thus greatly reducing our potential snow totals. If we trust the North American model, then this storm will be a frustrating fizzle.

This is the state of modern meteorology. The Euro vs. the North American. The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts vs the Global Forecast System. The ECMWF vs the GFS. For some storms we root for the Euro; for others we root for the GFS. And it's perfectly okay to change teams from storm to storm.

So, if you've made it this far with this post, then you know we all need to jump on Team Euro right now. And it wouldn't hurt if this storm were to track a little more northward if we hope to ensure a solid snow base for the entire month of February. 

Several updates coming in the days ahead.