WINTER STORM WARNINGS ARE UP FOR FRANKLIN COUNTY, CHESHIRE COUNTY, NH, NORTHERN WORCESTER COUNTY, AND CONTINUE FOR THE BERKSHIRES, LITCHFIELDS, TACONICS, AND SVT… WINTER WEATHER ADVISORIES ARE NOW UP FOR HAMPSHIRE COUNTY, HAMPDEN COUNTY, S. WORCESTER COUNTY, AND CONTINUE FOR N-CENTRAL AND N-EAST CT…. WIND ADVISORIES CONTINUE IN SVT, TACONICS, AND BERKSHIRES FOR TONIGHT SE WINDS GUSTING TO 40+MPH… QUICK THUMP OF SNOW GOES TO HEAVY SLEET LATE THIS AFTERNOON AND EARLY EVENING, FREEZING RAIN BEFORE MIDNIGHT… #SLOPFEST2019 CONTINUES… DRIVING DISCOURAGED THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING…. (7:45am Tuesday)

Good morning everybody, lots of early dismissals in place this morning with some cancels, and for good reason.

As an aside, what a gorgeous sunrise! Brief but sweet. Ok, as Marc Maron would say, let’s do the show.

SUMMARY
–Clouds continue to move overhead, thicken and lower with time
–It is VERY dry at the surface and overhead
–This sets up the opportunity for precip to fall as moderate to heavy snow and cool the column as it initially works into the region
–Snow should be reaching the ground between 11am-noon in northwest CT and Berkshires, and then in the early afternoon elsewhere across SVT, WMass, rest of CT, and maybe a bit after 1pm in CMass
–Snow becomes heavy at times, and it is this afternoon where we get our accumulations for the storm before it pours hateful sleet out of the sky tonight
–The milder surge aloft is cranking, yet there are still discrepancies between short-term guidance, which I have attached to this post
–One mode shows sleet moving in by 3-4pm!! The other waits until 7pm to move it in
–Based on observations upstream (i.e. weather stations positioned to our west, from where our weather is tracking), I am going to side with faster change to sleet
–Given this, I think the 3-6″ totals are going to do it for many of us, assuming sleet moves in faster (by about 4pm, give or take)
–Lower ends of that range for northern CT and up to the Pike or even Rt. 9 corridors south and east, with middle to higher range amounts north of Rt. 9
–I think 5-8″ looks good along and north of the Rt. 2 corridor up into VT and NH, including the northern Berkshires and western hilltowns.
–There might be a few pockets of 10″ in the high terrain of VT and NH, possibly bleeding into border towns like Heath, Florida, or Rowe, but you get the idea.
–Of course if I’m wrong, and the colder guidance has a better handle on things than totals go up a bit
–Regardless, we are sleeting and sleeting hard tonight
–Our secondary storm development keeps the warm flood from making it to the ground, and so freezing rain is likely before midnight in many areas, and certainly around or after it, from south to north
–Up to a quarter inch of ice accretion expected
–With winds gusting to 40mph over the Berkshires, Taconics, and SVT, some outages are possible as mentioned in last night’s report
–By Wednesday morning, we are drying up, though some scattered mixed showers are expected
–By afternoon, another shortwave moves through and when combined with some lake effect snow plumes, we could see some additional light accumulation snow in SVT in the afternoon and evening, and that may drift south into the Berkshires or western hilltowns

Ok everybody, have a great morning, and I will be back with an update around noon or so as our storm sets in.