Nor'easter School Is In Sesson

We love when a storm over performs, and yesterday's clipper-type system certainly did that. Here are snow reports from around the region. We did much better in mid-County and South County than we thought we would do.

Now, all talk will shift to the potential blockbuster of a storm for the end of the week. Not surprisingly, there's some uncertainty about the track and timing, so unfortunately we can not "lock this one in" just yet.

Before we get into this storm's particulars, you may hear chatter about the end-of-the-week storm as a  "Miller B storm." What does this mean? Who is Miller? Is there a Miller A storm?

Image courtesy of the National Weather Service.

Your GSD Nor'easter Seminar is now in session. "Miller" is meteorologist J.E. Miller, who identified two types of nor'easters in 1946. The first--type A--originates in the Gulf of Mexico, shoots across the coastal southeast states, and then gains energy along the coast of the mid-Atlantic states and New England. The second type--type B--comes out of the Ohio River valley, travels to the east coast, then picks up energy there and starts to move along the coast in a northeasterly direction. When the type B hits the coast and starts to move up, that's when you hear the terms "cyclogenesis" and "bombogenesis" as the storm picks up in strength and intensity.

The end-of-the-week storm will be a Miller B storm. That is exciting, as it could dump as much as a foot of snow on the Berkshires. Both the Euro and North American models are showing significant snowfall for most of the Berkshires by midday on Saturday. There's too much uncertainty right now to even hazard a guess for Friday, but let's just say we won't be surprised if there's serious discussion in a few days about a potential snow day and three-day weekend. 

We'll start to see more certainty about the future behavior of this storm by Wednesday morning. We're monitoring it around the clock and hope to have good news to share very soon.

The North American model for snow totals by 6 AM Saturday. The NA model takes the storm farther south and east.

The Euro model for snow totals by midnight Friday. The dry slot south Albany is concerning, but the rest looks great.