On the afternoon of Mon. Mar. 13, Ulster County residents were hours away from entering a Winter Storm Warning lasting from 8pm Monday evening to 8am Wednesday morning, preparing for what might be the most disruptive storm of the year during an otherwise unseasonably warm winter.
On Sun., Mar. 12, Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corporation warned its customers that “forecasts are calling for significant accumulations of heavy, wet snow coupled with damaging wind gusts of up to 40 miles per hour… snow accumulations are expected to exceed one foot in areas of higher elevation.”
The City of Kingston declared a snow emergency beginning at 7pm Mon. evening, noting in a Facebook post that “Central Hudson is preparing for 10,000-40,000 customers without power in its district.”
Intrepid regional weather experts at Hudson Valley Weather cautioned that “there’s a lot of volatility with the evolution of this storm [and] this tends to cause an equal amount of havoc in the data”. In a series of forecasting maps posted on their website, one can see parts of Ulster County escaping the heaviest snowfall, while surrounding areas are forecast to receive around a foot of snow. On the other hand, some forecasting maps show Ulster County reaching 8-27″ of snowfall. Anything could happen with this dynamically developing storm.
Mainstream weather forecasters were predicting a mix of rain and snow in much of the Ulster County region, with temperatures in many lower elevation areas not expected to drop below freezing. Folks in higher elevations were expected to experience significant snow totals, with some areas seeing the potential for over a foot of snow.
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