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.
You guys headed to Threads too?
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