Snowstorm moving into New England

Snow frozen in flight - Yesterday, 2/3/2014

Weather update from our Taunton Skywarn office this morning confirms that a Winter Storm Warning is now in effect from midnight tonight through 6 PM Wednesday for just about all of Southern New England, including our area, for 8-14" of snow. (Other storm warning areas include Southern New Hampshire, Northern Connecticut, Providence and Kent Counties of Rhode Island and Massachusetts from Northern Bristol and Northern Plymouth Counties north and west through the Berkshires.) Extreme southeastern New England (Cape, Islands, and parts of Rhode Island) are expected to get a wintry mix, with 4-8" of snow, up to a trace of ice, and a possible changeover to rain. We don't expect any changeover here - it's all snow for Amherst and the surrounding area.

You may have heard rumblings of an even more powerful storm for Sunday into Monday. But it is just too early to say anything with confidence. If the storm tracks straight at us, we could be talking measurements in feet of snow, not inches. And if it tracks offshore, to the southeast, it could graze past, bringing almost no snow to the Pioneer Valley. As the Skywarn office reminded us this morning, "There is a reasonably strong storm system for Wednesday that needs to be focused on first before looking into details on the weekend storm system. This will bear watching though as we get towards the end of this week and past the Wednesday storm event." Now I'm off to get bread and milk. ;) (Actually, cat food, which may be even more essential than bread and milk!)