Our government might have a big national debt but they are getting all the snow

and the cleanup from all this snow will certainly not help balance any budget. This storm, although a monster, and one of the most powerful winter storms I have seen hit the Mid Atlantic, will not help us here at MRG and we will have to enjoy a rather quiet weekend of weather and little if any fresh powder to ski in. Interestingly the wall of snow verses no-snow will establish itself right across New York city making that forecast nightmarish for the weather forecasters down there. For Washington D.C. it will be another historic snow in a historic year for snow since the winter will likely go down as the snowiest ever.

MRG can expect chilly temperatures although certainly nothing intolerable. Lows will bottom out near zero and afternoon temperatures will approach the 20 degree mark with the help of some sunshine. Winds will start the weekend on the lighter side but increase by the time Sunday rolls around, a day which should feature wind chills below zero along with some limited sunshine.

The most promising looking weather system in what ? a while at least will be the talk of the town early next week. It is a weak southern branch system that will get a big boost from energy diving down from Canada. It will in the end help to re-enforce a vigorous east coast trough and in the end bring some arctic chill deep into the south again. Most importantly however, it does appear capable of bringing moisture deep into New England and if all goes well blow up along the New England coast and prove to be a major powder producer for us. This hypothetical event would arrive Wednesday and persist into Thursday and it will follow a very long stretch of unusually dry weather. The storm may get caught in the maritime trap thus allowing enough moisture to wrap around back into northern New England and enhance the terrain induced snow machine during the end of the week which sets the mountain up nicely for the holiday weekend.

The more general view of the weather map and weather pattern has block in the jet stream of incredible size and magnitude across eastern Canada and much of Greenland. This will again allow the NAO to enjoy a long trip down into the depths of negativity. Such a feature will greatly reduce our chances for rain but can still deflect would be weather systems to our south much like what the weekend "bomb" is doing. It is still a favorable pattern with snow coming from terrain induced events at the very least. Its approaching "prime-time" at MRG and things are looking very "up" as the NAO goes "down".