About a Storm

If it's Monday, it must be a winter storm.

Marcus (fans of the TV series "About a Boy" will get the joke of this post's title) is rolling into the American Northeast this coming Sunday night on a jet stream track that seems to give the region  a new storm to worry about every Monday.  And not too long ago this was a storm that we weren't supposed to worry about - just a series of clippers producing a light snowfall from time to time.  Now it's one continuous storm that will produce snow, rain, and oh yes, a little bit of ice.

The ice will affect the New York City area, where I live, as well as the city itself, but the bulk of the storm is expected to bring snow to Boston (they must be sick of all that snow up there), and so the Tri-State area will be on the fringe of the system and thus have less precipitation.  Although the Monday morning commute is expected to be a slippery one, here's some good news.  The Weather Channel does not expect this to be a major ice storm with numerous blackouts and a lot of tree damage.  In fact, this storm is expected to be a wintry mix including sleet and snow, as well as ice, for New York, Newark, and their respective suburbs.  Concurrently, other weather services put the ice accumulation in the Tri-State region at no more than a quarter of an inch.  I'm still wary, though, because the forecasters could just as easily be wrong in predicting a negligible impact on the metropolitan area from this storm as they were in predicting a major and significant impact on the metropolitan area from the January 26 snowstorm.  However, even now, some local forecasters say that "dangerous travel" (I have to go out on Monday) can't be ruled out.      

I'm crossing my fingers as usual, and it may turn out that little of any consequence actually results from "Marcus."  But I'm getting sick of dreading Mondays for reasons other than the return to the grind of the work week.  Spring - or even a decent winter Monday - can't come soon enough.