Storm System to Drop Up to 8 Inches
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Gabriel Abbott School in the town of Florida will close at 11:30 a.m. today; Hoosick Falls (N.Y.) Central School has canceled all after-school activities. IBerkshires will update cancellations as they come in. Send cancellations to info@iberkshires.com.
A winter storm advisory has been issued by the National Weather Service beginning at 10 a.m. and ending at 2 p.m. on Wednesday.
Worse, temperatures are expected to hover in the mid-30s meaning some of that precipitation may be dropping as rain. That could create yet another slushy mess for today and icy conditions on Wednesday as the temperature takes a nose dive because of the Arctic front following on the heels of the storm.
Towns and cities across the region will be battling the storm with less-than-adequate road salt supplies.
Williamstown Town Manager Peter Fohlin told the Selectmen on Monday night that the town had ordered three to five loads of road salt - and got one on Friday. Another was hopefully on its way today, he said.
"We're on allocation for road salt," said Fohlin. "The salt company is divvying up what they get as the salt comes into Albany by train."
With road salt being "spread around" to towns and communities, he said, "we're kind of hand to mouth on road salt right now."
Williamstown isn't the only community being rationed. Low stocks in Pittsfield and North Adams were reported in The Berkshire Eagle this morning; it's dilemma facing municipalities throughout New England as the region has had to deal with near weekly storms.
The intensity and frequency of the recent storms have February on track to be one of the wettest in past century or so of record keeping.
The Berkshires are lumped into the Albany, N.Y., region by the National Weather Service. According to the Weather Service, the top year in terms of inches of precipitation (measured as rain) was 1870 with 5.19 inches. Just under an inch more will place this February as the wettest on record.
If you're counting inches from other end of Massachusetts, three-quarters of an inch will make it the wettest, according to the Patriot Ledger.
| 1870 | 5.19 inches |
| 1981 | 5.02 inches |
| 1893 | 4.63 inches |
| 1836 | 4.39 inches |
| 1851 | 4.38 inches |
