I wish I could say that it's time for me to start daily updates, but it's still a bit early for that since nobody in New England has so much as announced an anticipated opening date yet. However, the potential for the first widespread snowfall this coming weekend has created a bit of a buzz, so I do want to do a couple posts this week to talk about that. Also, in the next week or so I plan on doing a post that gathers together the winter forecasts that have been published by various forecasting companies.

So about this weekend. Here's the setup as of right now...

After a cold frontal passage on Thursday, a very winter-like setup will begin to develop as much colder air dives southward behind the front. Having this colder air in place is key for the rest of the weekend. On Friday, an Alberta Clipper-like storm will quickly move into the Mid-Atlantic and then move offshore Saturday morning. At the same time, a piece of energy lingering off the southeastern coast will begin to merge with the Clipper system, creating a single coastal storm that intensifies and moves up the coast. Like I said...a very winter-like setup. Although forecasting models have been trending towards a more powerful and cohesive coastal storm over the last 24 hours, they have also been trending further eastward and offshore with that storm's track.

We're still four days out from this potential storm. I would be very hesitant to stick my neck out with definitive snowfall amounts in the middle of winter, and I'm even more hesitant this time of year. Not only is there a lot of uncertainty this far in advance but there are other factors to consider with an early season storm like this. The biggest of those is how warm the ground is right now. Elevations below 3,000 feet haven't been anywhere close to cold enough to get the ground ready for accumulating snowfall. This just means that it has to snow that much longer before anything starts to accumulate and even then it will still be melting from the ground up for a little while.

Now, I'm going to risk sounding like a Debbie Downer what what I'm about to write, but those that have read my posts over the last couple of seasons know that I like to keep things realistic and in perspective. So that's all I'm going to do here when I say that at this point in time, I don't see any ski area in New England picking up enough snow to be truly skiable. No, getting out your rock skis and gliding on some snow covered grass does not count as "truly skiable". Certainly the caveat here is if the models continue to trend with a strong coastal storm but also trend the storm westward toward the coast, someone could end up getting a decent accumulation. The best chance of this that I see would be in the White Mountains at elevation...Cannon, Wildcat, or Bretton Woods for example. Again, will any of these mountains be truly skiable? I really don't think so. We do have a lot of diehards here on the East Coast though (which I love, by the way), so I'm sure there will be some folks out there making some "turns" this weekend.

I'll be updating again later this week about this potential storm. In the mean time, get excited for the first flakes of the year for most of us, and welcome to the 2014-2015 New England Daily Snow!