Community | February 05, 2010 | 73 comments

East Coast Faces Snowpocalypse - Are you snowed in?

source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/us/07storm.html?hp

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A blizzard that had forecasters reaching for superlatives engulfed the nation’s capital and the mid-Atlantic states on Saturday with record snowfalls that paralyzed transportation, commerce and all but emergency services. But it transformed the weekend into an enchanted snowbound adventure for millions.

Halfway across the chasm of winter, the storm charged over the Appalachians, smothering cities and quilting the countrysides of a half-dozen states from Virginia to New Jersey. It obliterated Washington with over 20 inches, Baltimore with a record 30 inches and Philadelphia with 26.7 inches. Some sections of West Virginia were hit by nearly three feet of snow.

But the blow, which began Friday night and tapered off at midafternoon on Saturday, had sharply defined shoulders to the north and south, and it spared New York City and Long Island with a mere 3 to 6 inches, and the Southeastern states got off with some rain.

The hard edges of Washington were softened as the snow recast the capital of monuments and malls into a postcard town of soft ice cream shapes that had been statues and aerodynamic blobs that had been parked cars: the buried machines of a lost civilization. The Capitol and the White House vanished in the whiteout, cross-country skiers appeared in parks and the Potomac was a grayish plate of pewter.

The National Weather Service said the blizzard did not challenge Washington’s 28-inch record, set in January 1922, a snowfall that collapsed the roof of the Knickerbocker Theater, killing 98 people and injuring 158. Nor did it rival the three-foot snowfall of 1772, long before record-keeping began, although it was noted in the diaries of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

President Obama, unlike the millions snowed in just in time for the Super Bowl, rode down the plowed driveway of the White House in a four-wheel drive sport-utility vehicle to the Capital Hilton Hotel, where he spoke to the Democratic National Committee. The president, a veteran of Chicago snows who has chided Washington for its timidity in modest storms, could not resist a quip: “Snowmageddon,” he said to loud applause.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/us/07storm.html?hp
  1. groups:
    Community,   News_Featured
  2. tags:
    Snow,  Blizzard,  Northeast
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