I’ve always been a fan of out of season snow events. That’s not to say that mid-October is out of season in the mountains of New York and New England, but it still feels awfully early, especially when it was 102 degrees inland here in SoCal yesterday. Still it looks favorable that somewhere in the Southern Greens, Berkshires, or eastern Adirondacks above 2,000′ or so is going to end up with a pretty decent amount of early season snow. This is always an issue because with the nor’easter, you’re also going to have wind and with the water content of the snow high, this is a perfect recipe for power outages, downed tree limbs, etc. Fortunately these are fairly sparsely populated areas being impacted. Additionally, this storm looks to dump a lot of rain. It looks like 1-3″ of rain on average from Eastern NY into New England. Should be a pretty dynamic storm to say the least.
There might be another brief dose of wintry type weather, possibly some early season lake effect precipitation, as we go into next week. Either way, it looks cooler than it has been in the East.
What will be interesting is whether this is just another nor’easter or hinting at what could be a favored storm track heading into the cool season. Very often, these early storms prelude what ends up happening…not to say that this is, but it is at least worth noting. One major difference between this nor’easter and what was seen much of last year is that the heavy precip from this will fall in New England (last autumn and winter, this was displaced much further south). This is something we’ll have to keep an eye on going forward.
Winter Storm Watch for the mountains of NY, MA and VT (NWS Burlington has a policy to not issue watches just for their mountains, but the spine of the Greens could get spanked in this storm).
URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ALBANY NY 412 PM EDT THU OCT 14 2010 MAZ001-NYZ032-033-042-047-051-058-063-082-VTZ013-014-151000- /O.NEW.KALY.WS.A.0008.101015T1200Z-101016T2200Z/ NORTHERN BERKSHIRE-NORTHERN HERKIMER-HAMILTON-NORTHERN WARREN- SCHOHARIE-WESTERN ALBANY-WESTERN GREENE-WESTERN ULSTER- NORTHERN FULTON-BENNINGTON-WESTERN WINDHAM- INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...PITTSFIELD...NORTH ADAMS...ATWELL... BIG MOOSE...EAGLE BAY...MCKEEVER...NOBLEBORO...NORTHWOOD... OLD FORGE...SPECULATOR...WARRENSBURG...COBLESKILL...MIDDLEBURGH... ALTAMONT...HUNTER...TANNERSVILLE...WINDHAM...SUNDOWN... ELLENVILLE...WOODSTOCK...WEST HURLEY...KERHONKSON...NAPANOCH... PHOENICIA...NORTHVILLE...MAYFIELD...BENNINGTON...JACKSONVILLE... NEWFANE 412 PM EDT THU OCT 14 2010 ...WINTER STORM WATCH IN EFFECT FROM FRIDAY MORNING THROUGH SATURDAY AFTERNOON... THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN ALBANY HAS ISSUED A WINTER STORM WATCH FOR ELEVATIONS ABOVE 2000 FEET...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM FRIDAY MORNING THROUGH SATURDAY AFTERNOON ACROSS THE SOUTHERN ADIRONDACKS...NORTHEAST CATSKILLS...AND HELDERBERGS...THE SOUTHERN GREEN MOUNTAINS...AND NORTHERN BERKSHIRES. RAIN IS EXPECTED TO MIX WITH...AND EVENTUALLY CHANGE TO WET SNOW ACROSS HIGHER ELEVATIONS WITHIN THE WATCH AREA...BEGINNING FRIDAY MORNING ACROSS THE SOUTHERN ADIRONDACKS AND NORTHEAST CATSKILLS...AND ACROSS THE SOUTHERN GREEN MOUNTAINS AND NORTHERN BERKSHIRES FRIDAY AFTERNOON. PERIODS OF SNOW...POSSIBLY HEAVY AT TIMES...WILL CONTINUE INTO FRIDAY NIGHT...BEFORE GRADUALLY TAPERING OFF SATURDAY. THE POTENTIAL EXISTS FOR SNOWFALL ACCUMULATIONS OF 7 INCHES OR GREATER WITHIN THE WATCH AREA. THE WEIGHT OF WET SNOW MAY BRING DOWN TREE LIMBS...ESPECIALLY IN AREAS WHERE LEAVES REMAIN. THIS MAY RESULT IN SOME POWER OUTAGES. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... A WINTER STORM WATCH MEANS THERE IS A POTENTIAL FOR SIGNIFICANT SNOW...SLEET...OR ICE ACCUMULATIONS THAT MAY IMPACT TRAVEL. CONTINUE TO MONITOR THE LATEST FORECASTS.
State of Occlusion 