An SUV travels through the falling snow on Frontier Drive in Staunton, Va., on Wednesday, March 6, 2012. Virginia State Police say they have responded to more than 200 motor vehicle crashes over an eight-hour period and have received hundreds of other calls during a winter storm pounding the state. (Huffington Post)
As the storm now sets it’s sights on the Northeast, we look back at what fell from the Dakotas to DC and we certainly have seen some very impressive totals with both Minneapolis and Chicago receiving over 9 inches, record-setting for Chicago. Snow totals generally ranged from 8-13 inches from North Dakota to Indiana (14″ fell in North Dakota) while as much as 8″ fell in Ohio and parts of Pennsylvania.
What certainly was unimpressive was the snow in and around the immediate DC Metro. The combination of a rain-snow line sitting almost directly over the area, urban heating and a naturally stronger March sun, meant somewhat of a bust on many forecasters part. It was a very tough call. I tweeted twice that DC would see either a disapointing 2-4 inches or a blockbuster 12″ depending upon where that rain-snow line set up, it happened to end up on the low end but drive 50 miles west of town and you may very well have gotten stuck there was so much snow.
As far as the Mid-Atlantic, here are some unofficial highest totals by state according to the National Weather Service.
Fishersville, Virginia 20.3 inches
4 miles W of Franklin, West Virginia 24 inches
2 mile NNW of Frostburg, Maryland 12.5 inches
While snow was impressive so too was some of the wind gusts reported along the coast. A top gust of 71 mph was recorded at Lewes, Delaware with multiple reports up and down the coast from Virginia to New Jersey, even Long Island of 50 to 65 mph gusts.
The trouble now is high tide. Coastal flooding is now occuring as strong onshore winds produce large waves which are coming onshore at a very high tide. The storm has also raised water levels 1-3 feet which is of course creating the surge flooding along low lying coastal areas. Some of the video, like the one below could be mistaken for ones taken during Sandy.
Here was the radar from earlier Wednesday as the snoiw came down hard across the Mid-Atlantic region.
Image source: weather.com
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Next up, it’s the Northeast. Below are the expected snow totals across the region with highest totals expected over inland parts west of Boston. However I believe some of these totals are overdone.
Image source: weather.com
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