Monsoon's Forecast: Thursday night / Friday and beyond...
Alright, my good people...here's my forecast:
Clouds increase throughout the day ahead of a storm system approaching from the west. Snow develops by 10 or 11pm tonight and tapers by 9 or 10am Friday. Some breaks of sunshine Friday afternoon as frigid arctic air moves in, plunging temperatures into the low teens overnight Friday to Saturday.
I've been vacillating a bit in terms of accumulation with this storm due to conflicting information regarding phasing (pulling moisture from another system/source to create a bigger storm) and snow ratio (the snow to liquid equivalent, which varies depending on surface temperature, wind speed, and other factors). But it's time to make up my damn mind. And so:
I'm downgrading the accumulation slightly to 4-6 inches...a bit more in NE Pennsylvania and the Poconos than in our area.
Possibility of at least a delay Friday: 95%
Possibility of cancellation Friday: 75%
Saturday and Sunday will feature variable cloudiness (sunnier on Saturday) with daytime highs only about 20 and overnight lows of about 6. (6!) Expect below-zero wind chills, especially on a breezy Saturday night. Apart from the famously crude idiom referencing a "brass bra," my favorite cold-weather sayings are "it's cold enough to freeze the nuts off a brass monkey" and "colder than a penguin's bollocks." "Cold as a banker's heart" is a good one, too, though it's a bit too pointed, and I would imagine that bankers aren't too partial to that one. Around the hallways here, the most popular manner in which to express this level of frigidity is "it's cold as balls, yo." Eloquence, it would seem, takes many forms.
Anyway: cold.
Next good chance for accumulating snow is Monday night into Tuesday, and this could be a bit more significant (in the 8-12 inch range at first blush). But that's more than 4 days away, and a lot could happen between now and then...
After that, we could be in for some more snow on February 2nd and 3rd.
Stay tuned this evening for updates when and if they become necessary...
Update at 9:50pm - light snow has begun to fall in the area. This fast-moving storm has caused me to make a few adjustments to the forecast:
Snow ends by 6 or 7am Friday. Accumulations will be in the 3-5 inch range.
Possibility of at least a delay Friday: 80%
Possibility of cancellation Friday: 60%
Monsoon