16 Years Ago: December 2009 Blizzard

On this date, 16 years ago, Southern New England and the Tri-State Area was getting pummeled by strong winds and heavy snowfall that created blizzard and white-out conditions. After all was said and done, a wide swath of 1-2 feet+ fell on SE Massachusetts, all of Rhode Island, SE CT through Long Island and Southern New Jersey. This storm is what we call an "I-95 special" due to the fact it heavily impacted areas near I-95 and southeast, leaving the Berkshires in MA and NW CT with little to no snow.

During the day on Saturday the 19th, a classic nor'easter began developing just off the coast of Cape Hatteras and tracked to the northeast. Light to moderate snowfall broke out over New Jersey and NYC and continued to spread NE over southern New England. The heaviest snow occurred during the night as an intense snowfall band formed over Long Island stretching through SE Massachusetts. This band produced snowfall rates on the order of 1-3" per hour in these areas and pivoted east during the early morning hours. By the afternoon most of the snow had ended as the storm system pulled away.

The December 19-20th, 2009 Blizzard went down as an historic event cementing itself as a NESIS category 2 storm. NESIS measures large winter storms on a scale of 1-5 determined through a calculation of snowfall amounts and population. January 1996 and March 1993 are two examples of category 5 storms. To see more images related to this storm along with a zoomed in CT snowfall map check out in our Winter Storm Archive.

-JDJ