After a fun weekend featuring dinner at Baluchi's and brunch at Elmo, it looks like tomorrow will be a busy day at the so-called weather desk. This coastal storm looks like it will be a game of inches.

According to most model predictions, the city will be right in the twilight zone between a band of heavy snow and a mixture of snow, sleet and/or rain. It's still too early to nail down exact amounts. But we do know a few things.

First, much of the precipitation will fall at night, which means if it does stay snow, it will accumulate optimally. At this time of the year, the sun angle has become strong enough so that if snow were to fall during the day, its accumulation would be offset by strong solar energy. However, it is not at all clear that most or all of the precipitation will be snow. We'll just have to wait and see.

Second, the storm is a relatively fast mover. Even if it is all snow, this will not be a superstorm of 2005 or anything like that, where it stalls off the coast and churns out endless amounts of moisture. Even accumulations in heavy snow bands north and west of the city should be not much more than a foot, maybe 15" in some spots.

Third, we know there will be some snow at the start. This is because the air is so dry. When precipitation starts falling in dry air, the temperature falls several degrees because of evaporational cooling--the same kind of cooling that makes you feel cold when get out of the water from swimming or showering. Even if onshore winds bring the temperature above freezing eventually, the temperature will have to climb back from an initial descent.

The consensus seems to be for a track somewhere across Long Island as it moves to the north-northeast. This is as close as it gets. A shift 30 miles in either direction could make a difference of several or more inches of snow. Given the lack of cold high pressure over Quebec and the track so close to the coast, my hunch is that the heaviest snow would not be in the city proper. It could, however, be in a band as close as I-287 around through northeast New Jersey into Rockland and Westchester, as close to the city as White Plains or Danbury. We'll see.