Storm won't be a home run ball but rather a double, a few well timed singles and a suicide squeeze

And those kind of rallies in baseball are good for several runs or in MRG speak a few powder days. Valentines Day 2007 it will not be since the storm is tracking too far north and too far inland for that type of event. The track of the low pressure center will pass over lower Michigan, proceed east-northeast and into the St Lawrence Valley before translating some energy to the Atlantic coast just in the nick of time. I say "nick of time" since the warm air's attempts to reach MRG will get thwarted and precipitation will remain as snow. What I like most about this event however is the terrain enhancement potential or terrain induced snow. Those words have eluded this blog far too much this winter but the pool of instability associated with this very deep and dynamic storm center will allow for an extended period of this typically very fluffy, ski friendly snow.

1-2 feet with the first inches being dense and the last being fluff
Snow from this long-talked about storm will begin Wednesday evening in between 5 and 9 PM. There has been some disagreement concerning at which time the snow will be heaviest. There is some loose agreement as of Tuesday afternoon to place the heaviest snow in this initial period during the early morning hours Thursday just prior to first tracks time. This will ensure a healthy accumulation of 5-10 inches for you Thursday skiers. Since this storm is passing so close to the mountain, there will be an area of sinking motion that could potentially end the snowfall for a time Thursday or at least reduce the intensity for a while. Such areas of sinking motion tend to transition through in time and this will be no exception. The pool of instability mentioned in the opening paragraph will create the welcomed situation where snow showers congregate around the mountain and this should begin late in the day Thursday and persist through much of the day Friday and into early Saturday. So on top of the relatively dense 6-12 inches of powder that falls prior to Thursday morning, we can expect an additional 4-8 of snow Thursday night into Friday and an additional 2-4 inches by Saturday morning. Terrain induced snow means that prognostications are subject to big errors in snow totals but the math adds up to a range of 1 to 2 feet and I will stick to that as a guess for now.

The "Manitoba Mauler"
Accumulating snow showers may taper to flurries Saturday for a period but by then we will have our eyes on another potent disturbance. This is the Manitoba Mauler discussed in the previous post and it will dive south from its appropriately named source region late on Saturday. The east coast can be described as a "tinder box" as the storm reaches the Atlantic Coast since the amplified trough will by then be well established and will set the foreground for a rapidly intensifying noreaster on Sunday. The timing, strength, track and eventual impact are all a question mark; in fact, there is a good chance that the impact on central and northern Vermont is limited but its a storm worth watching and its potential will get lots of color from the news media since an impact on major metro's is a possibility. The timing on such an event is most likely to be Monday as of now but stay tuned. We can say for certain that it will be blustery and chilly along with those flurries on Saturday and the cold weather will persist through early next week before giving way to a few mild days in the middle to later part of the week.