I wanted to post a quick update to give you the latest of what I'm looking at in terms of the upcoming storm.
As I suspected would happen, the weather forecast guidance (GFS model) that were forecasting an almost complete miss has now trended towards all of the other weather forecast guidance that are now forecasting a major snowfall across all of Central Mass and most of Western Mass. It needs to be pointed out and emphasized that there are an increasing number of weather guidance members that are forecasting a foot of snow across Western Mass and amounts of around 2 feet across Central Mass. This is something that I'm monitoring extremely closely and if the guidance tonight and tomorrow morning continues to show this, I will be substantially increasing my snow totals across the entire area.
HERE ARE MY LATEST THOUGHTS AS OF THURSDAY EVENING: It looks very likely now that all of Central Mass will see a high impact winter storm late Friday night through Saturday and into Saturday night. As for Western Mass, it looks like areas east of I-91 may now get in on the heavy snow with areas along and west of I-91 just barely missing out on the really heavy snow accumulations. Be aware though that this could change and a major storm is still very possible across all of Western and Central Mass.
At this point, I think that we’ll see snow develop across Western and Central Mass around midnight or so on Friday night and then continue right through all day Saturday and through the first half of Saturday night.
THE WORST PART OF THIS STORM LOOKS TO BE from about late Saturday morning through all of Saturday afternoon into early Saturday evening. During this time, we may see heavy snow with snow rates of at least 1 to 2 inches per hour, north winds gusting up to 40 mph at times, considerable amounts of blowing and drifting snow and blizzard conditions at times.
My recommendation is to stay off of the roads during the worst part of this storm. Heavy snow, blowing snow, drifting snow and blizzard conditions will make travel extremely difficult and extremely hazardous. If you absolutely must travel from late Saturday morning until early Saturday evening, use EXTREME caution on the roads.
HERE IS MY LATEST THINKING ON SNOW AMOUNTS: WESTERN MASS: Along & West Of I-91: 6 to 8 Inches. East Of I-91: 8 to 12 Inches.
CENTRAL MASS: Western Parts Of Worcester County, Including the Brookfields, Sturbridge, Southbridge, Charlton, Spencer and Paxton: 12 to 15 Inches.
Eastern Parts Of Worcester County, Including Worcester, Auburn, Millbury, Oxford, Westboro & Uxbridge: 15 to 18 Inches.
It looks like the snow will finally come to an end just after midnight on Saturday night.
I continue to watch this storm extremely closely and will continue to have frequent updates as needed.
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