This storm is a nice surprise and I'm pretty sure a handful of ski areas are going to be approaching a foot of snow by the time it is practically over on Friday morning. This storm is a perfect example of why you should never just hunt a snowfall map because we likely have 3 days of wind holds associated with it, so you must choose your spot wisely. To complicate matters further this storm splits two ski days in some parts.
If you want to hunt this then you have to consider not just how much snow falls, but when exactly it falls, and then consider the wind and what lifts might be running. You might not even be hunting of course and this just so happened to be what Mother Nature served up on your outing, but the same logic applies.
Now I'm not ChatGPT and I can't simply spit out the perfect solution to every individual's needs on demand (though you can ask questions in the comment section of this article), but I can give you the elements of the equation so that you can solve it on your own. That's part of the magic of Snowology, over time you learn the tricks of the trade and figure out how to handle the choices you have given the weather and how it may affect operations.
Here's the simulated radar for this storm covering all of Wednesday and the first half of Thursday.
Modeling suggests the upslope starts to taper off around 4PM on Thursday and ends completely by about midnight. Lake effect however will continue on until around noon on Friday. Use this loop to help determine the travel difficulties. and take special note of what happens Wednesday. There's some pretty heavy snow after close on Wednesday, and then lake effect will cause some notable driving issues in NY.
I'm going to cover just the Snowfall Forecast and the Wind Hold Forecast for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for subscribers. Before I jump into that however I want to mention that on Saturday we'll have another pretty light wave coming through with snow, and then on Sunday a slightly more organized wave that modeling currently focuses on PA. So the snow will continue for many this weekend! I'll cover that in The Week Ahead due out on Thursday.
