Highly Active Pattern--Four Day Weekend?

Across the nation today the weather was bonkers. Avalanches, tornadoes, blizzards, floods--yeesh! It's dangerous out there.

Closer to home, we did see a spate of delays this morning. We thought we might see one or two, and those delays predictably came in the higher elevation towns on the east side of the County.

We will enjoy about 48 hours of calm before the next weather maker hits the region. Unfortunately, the next storm--late Friday into Saturday--will look a lot like yesterday's storm. The center of the storm will shoot up from the south, but it will go to our west. Whenever we are on the east side of a storm center, the air gets too warm and it leads to rain. So, sadly, we'll once again see snow at first (late Friday night) and then rain. Fortunately, it will be a fast mover and the rain should end mid-afternoon. We will see temps in the mid-40s on Saturday, but the cold air returns on Sunday.

The return of the cold air cold lead to a storm on Tuesday or Wednesday. We absolutely could be guilty of pre-storm hype for this one--we're not ashamed--but there are signs from the models of a snow day-inducing snowfall for Tuesday or Wednesday. The models are certainly not in agreement, but, in the immortal words of Lloyd Christmas, we are saying that there's a chance. 

The Euro for Wednesday (1/17) morning. This storm does not have to track that much farther to the north for us to enjoy a snow day.

Right now the Euro model is showing the storm tracking to our south and the Berkshires getting 2-4 inches of snow by daybreak Wednesday (see above). Yesterday, the models were showing more of a 6-8" storm for Tuesday into Wednesday so it's not trending in the right direction. There's a lot of variability and uncertainty, which likely means we'll get a big fat nothing-burger, but a more northerly turn to the storm center could make next week a 3-day week.

After that, we're seeing signals for yet another weekend storm. We have noted over the years that storms can come in threes, and a storm for the weekend of the 20th-21st would be our third weekend storm in a row. This storm would be all snow because there will be cold air in place.

The best case scenario next week is two snow days, Wednesday and Friday (highly unlikely). The worst case scenario would be a four-day week (Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday). Even in the worst case scenario we should get a base of snow that might stick around for a while.

The GSD Staff is amped up to bring you fresh content each day. Keep the faith, Flake Followers!