1 of 11 | Children sled down a hill in Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. The second significant and second biggest winter storm of the season swept through the D.C. area Tuesday afternoon and night dropping about 6 inches of snow. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI |
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Two years ago, winter seemed nonexistent in Washington, D.C., with less than an inch of snow falling throughout the season. A much different story has unfolded this year, with the most recent storm making this winter the snowiest on record in nearly a decade.
"A significant amount of snow has fallen here in the nation's capital," Storm Chaser Aaron Rigsby said on Wednesday morning while reporting from the city. "Last night, this was a sloppy mess," Rigsby added that many schools canceled classes due to the snowstorm.
Reagan National Airport was blanketed by around 6 inches of snow Tuesday into Wednesday. The seasonal snowfall total now stands at 14.8 inches, making it the snowiest winter since 2018-19, when 16.9 inches fell. Additionally, this week's storm made this month the snowiest February since 2015, when 9.8 inches accumulated.
"We had some heavier, dense snow," Justin Brown, the Deputy Director of the District of Columbia Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency, told AccuWeather. Brown added around 250 trucks worked around the clock to plow and salt roads around Washington, D.C., to keep the roads drivable, especially leading up to the Wednesday morning commute.
Much heavier snow fell to the south and west of the city, accumulating more than a foot in some locations.
"Snow piled up as high as 14.5 inches at Iron Gate, Virginia, 20 miles west of Lexington, 13 inches at Fairlea, West Virginia, and 11.3 inches at Clements, Maryland. Heavy freezing rain south of the heavy snow had knocked out power to 175,000 customers in southern Virginia as of Wednesday morning, according to PowerOutage.us, with more than half of homes and businesses losing power in Amelia, Prince Edward and Powhatan counties," AccuWeather Meteorologist and Digital Producer Jesse Ferrell said.
The snowstorm also delivered fresh powder to other major cities in the Interstate 95 corridor, including 4.6 inches in Philadelphia and 1.8 inches in New York City.
More storms are on the horizon for the mid-Atlantic, including two before the end of the weekend and one around the middle of next week.
"There's probably going to be a major storm next week, due to a strong injection of Arctic air over the northern Plains," AccuWeather Chief On-Air Meteorologist Bernie Rayno said. "The question is does that storm try to track up along the Atlantic coast or head more to the east, across the Southern states and then out to sea."
