Here are the snowfall totals for Berkshire County reported to the National Weather Service:
North Otis 22.0
Alford 20.0
Peru 18.7
Lenox 12.1
Lanesborough 11.0
Great Barrington 11.0
Housatonic 10.0
Pittsfield 10.0
Williamstown 10.0
We definitely escaped the worst of this storm. Snowfall totals in south-central and eastern New England ranged between 2 and 3 feet. Portland, ME has already broken its snowfall record with 29.3″ and it is still snowing heavily there. Thunder snow was reported at numerous locations in CT and central and eastern MA. Snowfall rates reached 5 inches per hour in some locations in CT where a band of incredibly heavy snow and thunder snow developed as the two jet stream disturbances merged and environmental instability and vertical velocities (upward motion in the atmosphere) exploded rapidly during the evening. Milford, CT along the southern coast of CT measured 38 inches and received 12.7 inches in a 3 hour period.
I will be submitting my next forecast tomorrow. For those of you who are new to this “blog”, apparently there are many, I started this website to give a platform to the student’s in my Introduction to Meteorology course to post forecasts (with my help) as part of lab work for that class. I teach this class each fall semester and the forecasts are posted on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons. As a service to the Berkshire County community, I post forecasts, on average about 3 days a week, during the rest of the year. During the spring semester this year I am trying to post on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, giving forecasts that go out 2-3 days. If there is an important weather event, such as our recent snowstorm, I try to update the forecast at least once a day. I usually post the forecasts after 2 pm, when all of the computer forecast model data has come in. You will also notice that in the summary I frequently discuss the physical processes behind the weather as a teaching tool to my students (I am teaching an Extreme Weather class this spring) and as an educational tool for anyone who is interested.
In addition, you will notice that there are links to my class webpages and a link to a “weather links” page at the top of the forecast (blog home) page. Feel free to help yourself to any of this information.