Image: NWS
While the National Weather Service has finished compiling snowfall amounts that broke records in the northeast this week, people are also remembering another potent winter storm that hit the Mid Atlantic this week in 2009. For many cities, like Philadelphia and New York City, more snow fell this week than the entire winter season of 2019-2020. And while the 2009 Blizzard was impressive with snow totals greater than 20″ in many areas, this week’s event was even more impressive, with more than 40″ recorded across several states.
Binghamton, New York set a new record; the airport there recorded 39.1″ while another recording location in town recorded 41.0″. According to the National Weather Service there, these numbers exceeded the 35.3″ 2-day snowfall record set in March 2017. Nearby Endicott recorded 40.5″ while Vestal and Johnson City measured 37.5″. In the peak of the storm, snow fell here at rates in excess of 4″/hour.
But the highest total of the 2020 storm was captured in the small town of Newark Valley, a tiny village about 10 miles from Binghamton. They received an eye-popping 44″ of snow. Croydon, New Hampshire also reported 44″ of snow, which is only 5″ shy of the 24-hour storm record in New Hampshire set atop Mount Washington.
Alba, Pennsylvania reported 43.3″ while Landgrove, Vermont saw 42″. In Williamsport, Pennsylvania, the 24.7″ there broke their 2-day snowfall record with records going back 125 years. The 22.9″ that fell in Albany, New York made it the 8th largest snowstorm on record there and the fourth largest on record for the month of December.
Image: NWS
This weekend serves as the anniversary of the 2009 Nor’Easter Blizzard. The storm formed in the Gulf of Mexico on December 16 and dissipated off the northeast coast by December 20. In between those days, very heavy snow fell, breaking records in Washington, DC, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. The storm was nicknamed the “2009 Snowpocalypse.”
The 2009 storm broke the record for the most amount of snow in a single December storm at Washington, DC’s Reagan National Airport, where 16.4″ of snow accumulated.
The New York City office of the National Weather Service, located in Brookhaven, reported 26.3″ of snow, the most they saw since 1949.
By December 20, 2009, 23.2″ fell in Philadelphia, surpassing the city’s second-largest record of 21″ of snowfall which fell February 11-12, 1983. The 2009 storm also broke a 100 year old record for largest single December storm in the City of Brotherly Love.
Heavy snow also fell across states south of the region. Harlan, Kentucky recorded 7″, North Carolina measured 24″ in Robbinsville, and 26″ fell in Indian Valley, Virginia.
