Megalopolitan Storm
This storm set 24-hr snowfall records across Pennsylvania and Connecticut including Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Allentown and Hartford. Northern Virginia, western Maryland and the pan-handle of West Virginia felt the brunt of the storm with accumulations of over 30 inches. Heavy snow blanketed the urban corridor and snow was reported from the mountains of western North Carolina all the way through southern Maine. There was an outbreak of thunderstorms imbedded in the storm which helped fuel the extremely high snowfall rates of 2 to 5 inches an hour observed from Washington DC to New York City. The storm was a Cat 4 for the Southeast Region, a Cat 3 for the Northeast Region and a Cat 2 for the Ohio Valley Region. (Kocin and Uccellini)
The storm by region
Each region’s thresholds are its own, so the same depth of snow counts for more in the South than in the Northeast.
| Region | Index | Category | Area with snow (sq mi) | People under snow | Above the top threshold (sq mi) | People above it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southeast | 14.78 | Category 4, Crippling | 83,155 | 17,309,340 | 13,915 | 4,053,320 |
| Northeast | 7.86 | Category 3, Major | 141,411 | 55,366,925 | 19 | 885 |
| Ohio Valley | 3.25 | Category 2, Significant | 127,178 | 22,696,345 | 2,979 | 272,914 |
The Regional Snowfall Index is NOAA’s ranking of snowstorms east of the Rockies by how much snow fell, over how wide an area and on how many people, region by region: the area and the population above four snowfall thresholds set for each region, weighted against that region’s own history. A storm is scored in each region it reached, on a scale from 1, notable, to 5, extreme.
In the Storm Events record
The Storm Events Database holds winter weather only from 1996, so this storm has no episodes there.
More
The snowstorm of April 4 to 8, 1982The snowstorm of March 24 to 29, 1983Snow nowEvery winter storm filed
Sources
NOAA NCEI Regional Snowfall Index, and the Storm Events Database for the episodes.