Weather porn, more snow, and Valentine's Day

National Weather Center, Weather Prediction Center
"Probability of Precipitation" forecast map for Thursday, 2/13/2014

Yes, "weather porn" is a thing in weather circles - it often takes map form (extreme sweeps of densely placed convection lines or crazy low pressure systems, polar vortex cold fronts, etc.), but extreme weather lingo even without a map also qualifies. It doesn't really matter if one understands what's being said. You know Weather Porn when you hear/see it. Take, for example, this excerpt from the National Weather Service's most recent forecast discussion for southern New England's impending storm (all-caps formatting is theirs, not mine): "TAKING INTO ACCOUNT THE BOMBING LOW UNDERGOING OCCLUSION...WILL SEE STRONG ONSHORE E/SE-FLOW WITH THE APPROACHING STORM EARLY THURSDAY INTO THURSDAY EVENING. LACK OF ARCTIC AIR IN PLACE... FEEL AN EROSION OF COLDER AIR WILL TAKE PLACE ALMOST IMMEDIATELY FOR THE SHORES AND COASTAL PLAINS... GRADUALLY MORESO TOWARDS THE HARTFORD- WORCESTER-AND MANCHESTER-METRO AREAS." Admit it. You enjoyed reading that.

But Weather Porn can only take you so far. There’s a new storm on the horizon and a new forecast to keep an eye on. Head in the Clouds predicted the last storm correctly, and if you were following, you may remember that we even went out on a limb early on for an 8-12" all snow prediction, at the time even contradicting the local TV meteorologists (though not Matt Noyes of NECN, who is THE professional meteorologist to follow these days). This one feels trickier, as the computer models are showing the rain/snow line moving fairly close to Amherst during the afternoon on Thursday. Here's what we do know - our Thursday snowstorm will commence sometime around or just after dawn (5-7 am) on Thursday and snow - at times fairly intensively, even 1-2 inches per hour - during the first half of the day. Will we get a change-over to sleet/freezing rain during the afternoon? Quite possibly. Head in the Clouds maintained last time around that we were in for all snow in Amherst, and that's exactly what happened. This time? Too close to call (and I’m not crazy enough to guess on this). Amherst and the surrounding areas could stay in the all-snow zone, but 1-2 tenths of an inch of ice accumulation later on Thursday is not out of the question. However, even if we do get a mix of sleet/freezing rain, it will go back to snow by Thursday night. Altogether, I'm guessing we'll get 8-12 inches of snow (and if sleet/freezing rain mixes in, more like 8-10 inches). And don't expect that fluffy light stuff we've been getting. This snow is likely to be heavier and wetter.

And one last thing – if you haven’t secured your Valentine’s Day gift/chocolate/flowers/card yet, you might want to make that a priority tomorrow. Traveling on Thursday is likely to be treacherous, and who knows how long it will take to dig out on Friday. And, besides, just how far out on the raggedy edge do you want to take this holiday?

Stay safe everyone. As New Englanders are well aware (and communities in the South are learning anew right now), snow/ice storms are only the good kind of exciting as long as everyone is able to stay out of harm's way.