Heavy Snow in Maryland, February 18, 2000

Snow spread across the Maryland Eastern Shore around 6 a.m. EST on Friday, February 18th. It changed briefly to sleet and freezing rain before changing to plain rain by noon EST. The change to plain rain occurred the quickest in Caroline and Talbot Counties, but took until about noon EST along the Pennsylvania border in Cecil County. Accumulations prior to the changeover in Kent and Cecil Counties averaged between 2 and 3 inches. Farther south accumulations, if any, were generally an inch or less. Untreated roadways were slippery during the morning.The cause of the snow was a pair of low pressure systems that developed in the Southern Plains during the day on the 17th. By Friday morning the 18th, one low was in the central Ohio Valley, the other near Springfield, Missouri. A large high pressure system moved across the northern Middle Atlantic States and New England on the 17th and 18th and supplied a fresh supply of cold air. But the lows' storm track passed them through the Eastern Shore during the evening of the 18th and the morning of the 19th. The proximity of these lows and the counterclockwise circulations around them from the nearby Atlantic Ocean were enough to raise temperatures above the freezing mark.