Heavy Snow and High Wind in Massachusetts, March 31, 1997

A low pressure system formed off the New Jersey coast during the early morning hours and intensified rapidly as it moved to a position 60 miles south of Newport, Rhode Island by early evening. Pressure falls of 14 millibars occurred during a 12 hour period. The system then retreated to the south during the evening. This storm went on to produce one of the greatest snowfalls ever recorded in central and eastern Massachusetts and was termed the "Blizzard of '97." The storm was made even more unusual by its late-season occurrence. The final snowfall totals will be included in April 1997 Storm Data, as will the final assessment of damages caused by the heavy wet snow and strong winds.Precipitation started in the form of rain and began spreading across the state from south to north during the morning hours, but soon mixed with heavy, wet snow. Rain changed to all snow rather quickly by late morning across western and central Massachusetts and soon changed to all snow in the eastern part of the state, except right along the coast, during the afternoon. During the evening hours, moderate to heavy rain soon changed to heavy, wet snow even along the coast. Blizzard conditions, which began during the afternoon across western and central Massachusetts, spread southeast covering most of the state by midnight, except over Cape Cod and the Islands and along the immediate south coastal areas and islands where snow was still mixed with some rain. Thunder and lightning began during the late afternoon and continued intermittently throughout the night. Northeast winds increased to strong to gale force throughout the eastern part of the state by late afternoon and high winds occurred during the evening, especially along coastal sections. The strong winds with this storm occurred during the late afternoon and evening hours. A peak gust to 73 mph from the northeast was recorded at Blue Hill in Milton at 6:43 PM. At Easton, in Bristol County, a gust to 60 mph was recorded at 9:30 PM. Along the coast south of Boston, Hull had a gust to 64 mph. Along Buzzards Bay, Onset recorded a peak gust to 64 mph. All of the wind gusts were from the northeast and occurred in the late afternoon and early evening, when the lowest barometric pressure was recorded. Heavy, wet snow accumulated rapidly on all surfaces, including trees and power lines, during the late afternoon. The evening commute became a nightmare as thousands of cars backed up on unplowed roads. The situation was further aggravated by falling trees and power lines, which closed some roads. Power failures began occurring by late afternoon and during the evening, the total number of outages soared rapidly into the hundreds of thousands. Immediate coastal areas had the least losses of power.In the City of Boston, 50 to 60 percent of the snowplows which were on the streets by 11 PM were later rendered useless because of the heavy, wet snow as the storm raged into April 1st.Some snowfall accumulations as of midnight on April 1st were as follows: Ashfield, 25 inches; Worcester Airport, 21.7 inches; West Townsend, 15.9 inches; Blue Hill, Milton, 15 inches; Woburn, 12 inches; and Hingham, 6 inches. Again, refer to April 1997 Storm Data for further details.