Snow Threats Rising

If any of you snow lovers scanned your radar images this morning (Sunday), you might have noticed a large swath of snow in northern New England. We're excited to report that snow threats are beginning to creep into the ten-day forecast.

Wet snow is officially in the region.

It's highly likely that we just experienced the warmest weather we'll see for five or six months. On Friday, Albany tied a 60-year-old record by getting up to 78 degrees. While we might see the occasional spike into the 60s in the next five weeks, a consistent stretch of temps in the 60s is unlikely from now until April.

Increasingly, we're seeing the flurries and snow symbols work their way into meteorologists' forecasts. A few days ago we were getting all tingly in the GSD office as the words "coastal storm" and "nor'easter" were being mentioned for Wednesday. Unfortunately, it looks like the storm will form too far off the coast to bring as any midweek wintry weather. With the storm going out to sea, cold air will get pulled into our region and Wednesday is going to feel downright wintry--highs in the low 40s and lows in the mid-20s. You may need to scrape the windshield for your morning commute on Thursday.

As for the end of the week, temps will be more normal for this time of year (mid-50s), but it's expected to turn cooler over the weekend and into next week (back to the 40s). A mix of rain and wet snow and/or flurries are possible Monday and Tuesday.

Keep the faith. Snow will be here soon!

2023-24 Winter Preview

Hello, faithful Flake Followers! And welcome back to another year of winter fun in the Berkshires. We here at Greylock are thrilled to start year 14 of predicting snow days for students (and teachers and parents) of Berkshire County and surrounding areas.

The word "nor'easter" was in the weather news for this weekend (rain only this time), and this means winter weather is not too far around the corner. If this storm were to fall on December 21 instead of October 21, we'd be looking at well over a foot of snow.

As always, everyone wants to know what the long-range forecasters are saying about the chances for big snows this winter. We are pleased to report (mostly) good news. Simply put, we are expected to be in a strong El Nino pattern. This means that New England will see warmer temps this winter but also much more moisture. Historically, strong El Nino winters yield a few very large storms. Here's a tasty quote tracked down by WBUR's Barbara Moran:

"Typically, during El Niño, there's a two or three pretty big snowstorms along the East Coast on average. But every El Niño is different and every number of nor'easters per winter season is very different," said Jon Gottschalck, chief of the Operational Prediction Branch of the Climate Prediction Center.

The second sentence from Gottshalck is very wishy-washy, but we love his first observation. If we do get 2 or 3 storms in the 12-18" range this winter, that should be more than enough to get us to our average snowfall totals--or slightly above. Our only worry is that we'll get a few big storms, but warm temperatures will not allow a solid snow base to form to carry us through the winter.

Our official GSD position is that we will see one big storm in November this year and then a quiet period in December. Then storms will ramp up again in late January, February, and early March and we'll have an above average snow season. Maybe not quite 2015 Boston levels, but we should have a very good year.

In the short term, it does not look like we will see our first sub-freezing temperature of the season until November 1-3. But colder air is indeed looming in the distance. We may not see that big November snow until later in the month--Thanksgiving snow?--but we do think that we'll have plenty of moisture in the air to raise our chances for snow.

The staff is very happy to be back, and we'll post again once the forecast warrants it.