I'm not saying that's how much we'll get when the Tuesday/Wednesday storm finally checks in, although 5-to-10 does seem to be a conservative assessment of the current thinking among the meteorologists I've checked.
UPDATE, Noon: The NWS has just updated their Winter Storm Watch. You won't like it:
"ACCUMULATIONS...POTENTIAL FOR 8 OR MORE INCHES OF SNOW. THERE IS
A GOOD LIKELIHOOD OF SNOW IN EXCESS OF 10 INCHES."
Earlier post resumes below:
But after the 21-inch storm in December, and the 24-inch (maybe) storm last weekend, 5 to 10 inches just doesn't seem to pack the panic value it might have, say, last year. Am I wrong?
Anyway, the National Weather Service is putting the storm potential at 5 inches or more. But that's misleading. It just reflects their belief that the coming storm will meet their criteria for issuing Winter Storm Watches, which begins at 5 inches. So that's the floor for this storm. The watches cover all of Maryland except the southernmost counties.
We are now moving within the 36-hour window for this storm, so the forecasters at Sterling have begun to put out accumulation forecasts. So far, however, that only covers Tuesday before sundown. And even though they expect the snow to start after 2 p.m. in Baltimore, they're only predicting "less than one inch" for that time period. Sound familiar? That's about how the last storm began. The snow started late morning, and snowed until sunset without much accumulation.
We should get the Tuesday night and Wednesday accumulation predictions from Sterling later today.