Winter Storm Spotlight: The Blizzard of 2016 "Snowzilla"

JDJweather
Jul 15
2 min read

Recently added to our Winter Storm Archive was the Blizzard of 2016 and the entire winter of 2015-2016. The January 23rd, 2016 blizzard aka "Snowzilla" and "Juno" in various media outlets was one of the most extreme and record breaking snowstorms on the East Coast in recent history. In the midst of mediocrity and a warm winter season came a powerful nor'easter. A large area of one to three feet of snow fell from D.C. to New York City, with up to four feet in the mountains of Virginia and West Virginia.

WPC Surface Weather Maps & Fronts Jan 23rd, 2016

On January 22nd surface low pressure was deepening and moving off the Eastern Seaboard. Heavy snow was already falling in the Mid-Atlantic states with a mixture of sleet, freezing rain and rain at the coast. There was a lot of uncertainty on how much, if any snow, New York City and points north would get. Models were split and the local and national weather outlets were uncertain on what to do for a forecast. As the hours past on the evening of January 22nd and into the night, it became clear the more northern track (snowier solutions) were going to be correct. Blizzard watches were converted to warnings for the Tri-State Area and far Southern New England.

NWS Watches & Warnings for January 23rd, 2016

On the overnight hours and morning of January 23rd heavy snow finally moved north into New York City and Connecticut. A slow moving and pivoting radar animation (below) shows the area of heaviest snowfall along with an extremely sharp cutoff in accumulating snow. This radar loop is very reminiscent of the blizzard of 1996, albeit a bit further southeast. Snow finally came to end across coastal sections and long island shortly after midnight.

After all was said and done, two to three feet of snow was common in the Tri-State Area, 10-16" along Southern Connecticut with a razor sharp cutoff just miles to the north. New York City officially recorded it's highest ever snowfall with 27.5". This wasn't without some controversy as the official amount was 26.8" (0.1" lower than the February 2006 storm) and was determined a couple months later that the measurement was inaccurate and thus too low.

Snowfall totals across Southern New England and the Tri-State Area varied significantly from nothing to 12"+ in just 10-15 miles. Here are the total snowfall amounts from those regions.