The Forecast
During Friday afternoon the 5th, I was looking at the 36 to 48 hour forecasts, and concluded that a snowstorm would hit Maryland on Sunday the 7th. Keeping in mind that this IS after all, Maryland, I figured on being disappointed and ended up forecasting "only" 6 inches. My friends/co-workers at Goddard were more pessimistic than I was, calling for only a few inches. By the time I left work on Friday, I had decided to not drive back to New Jersey that weekend for a Devils hockey game, even though my current thinking was that: 1) the storm would not bring much snow to NJ before departing out to sea, and 2) the storm wouldn't start until midday on Sunday. Despite being wrong on these two counts, I still made the right call to not attempt a NJ-to-Maryland return drive on the 7th.
That night, the gang headed over to Greg Walker's house for an evening of playing pool and drinking beer. We were keeping an eye on the Weather Channel, getting more and more hyped as we talked about the chance of big snow "if only X would happen....". Just around 10pm, we dialed into work to check out some of the ETA FOUS data. It was so glowingly positive, we had trouble containing ourselves! At 11pm, we turned on NBC4 for Bob Ryan's forecast. The forecast was the lead story, and he was talking in such a serious voice, it was half-scary. As he began discussing some of the projected snowfall amounts, we erupted. We started getting more data off of Greg's computer and became even more excited. It was like a tornado had just touched down :). We tried to get some graphical output off Greg's computer. After that didn't work, someone got the bright idea to take the whole gang into work. So between midnight and 1am, we found ourselves crammed into GSC's >offsite office pulling up forecast plots. We started talking about stocking up food and gas supplies - and were already joking about how we could end up missing work for a good part of the coming week.
The Blizzard
Snow started in Glenn Dale (where I was renting a room at the time) about 10:30pm on Saturday the 6th. Glenn Dale is maybe 20 miles northeast of the center of the District - only a few miles outside the Beltway. I stayed up long enough to watch the ground turn nearly white. By the time I got up the next day (Sunday the 7th), it was still snowing heavily. My roommate tried driving his car around the driveway a couple times during the day to keep it passable. I decided against helping him out for several reasons: 1) I knew with the totals we'd get, it wouldn't help much, 2) although it never really got that bad out, I knew better than to go outside during a >blizzard warning (even if I would never be farther than 100 feet from the house), and 3) I didn't want to chance anything I didn't have to with my new car. The rate of snowfall began to slow by nightfall, but the wind began to pick up a little bit. It was still snowing when I went to sleep Sunday night knowing already the next day was going to be a "snow day". I was a little surprised to see it was STILL snowing on Monday the 8th when I woke up. By 1pm, the snow was intermittent, but the winds were really strong and gusty. After it had ended, some impressive snow totals began to be reported. I measured on average 24" of snow outside the house. I lived near the center of the "X" underneath the "4" where the 20-24 inch range is written on the previous storm total map. The storm continued to bring heavy snow to the entire east coast.
As I was watching the local news, I could tell the drifting would be a major problem for snow removal. Sure enough, the snowplows hadn't even really cleared the major primary roads yet. By late Monday night, Tuesday was also declared a "snow day". I went outside Monday afternoon with my dog, Nimbus, to play around and take some pictures.
Sucker Punch
The forecast was for additional "flurries" on Tuesday the 9th as well. Although the forecasters did an excellent job with the projected amounts from the blizzard, they missed the forecast from the Alberta Clipper storm that passed over the region. A few snow squalls stayed right over Glenn Dale and Goddard most of the day, with moderate snow giving another 5" in Glenn Dale. This was a more significant problem as far as travel was concerned, however. The plows, which had just about finished the primary roads in the area and were beginning to move on to the residential streets, were forced back onto the primary roads to keep them open. By Tuesday night, the street on which I lived (labeled a "Snow Emergency Route") was still only open to 1 lane total. The other streets near me hadn't yet been touched.
Still, I was surprised to wake up on Wednesday morning the 10th to find that it would be a third consecutive "snow day". But after watching the road conditions on TV, I knew it was the right call. The crews were working 'round the clock for their 4th consecutive day on Wednesday, but some of the secondary roads were still covered with snow. The on and off ramps to the Beltway weren't good to go until late in the day either. The Metro (which is so vital here in DC - especially during inclement weather) was also running at only ~50% of capacity. I spent a couple hours Wednesday afternoon digging my car out and clearing the end of the driveway.
Thursday the 11th was a work day - for the furloughed government employees (I was not furloughed), the first work day since December 16th! The commute was anything but easy, however. By now, almost all of the roads had been plowed at least once, but that didn't mean that they were clear. Even the "Snow Emergency Route"s were missing an entire lane or two. Many people took the Metro - it was running at ~75% of capacity and the cars and platforms were jammed for the commute home. Luckily, I only had (normally) a less than 10 minute drive; no Beltway or Metro necessary for me to get to Goddard. Still, it took me 20 minutes on the 11th.
Round Three
On Monday afternoon, the local forecasters had warned about another possible snowstorm on Friday the 12th. By the time I went to bed on Thursday, no additional snow was falling. When I woke up and called into work, I was pleased to learn that there would be another "snow day". I looked outside once the sun came up, and there was heavy snow with at least 3" additional so far. It was the first time ever I could remember a "snow day" on my birthday! It snowed until noon, with sleet mixed in for the last hour or so. By the time it was all over, I got 6" more in Glenn Dale. The elementary school next door was closed all week and didn't even attempt any plowing until late Friday when they proceeded to push much of their snow into the unshoveled half of the driveway.
On Saturday the 13th, I slowly began to dig out once again. It was clear all day, revealing to satellite an impressive blanket of snow. I took some additional pictures around the house, including some monster icicles. I had left the house only once all week (to go to work on Thursday). It was pleasantly sunny on Saturday. I didn't drive out until late on Sunday the 14th; temperatures were in the low 40's, as they also were on Monday the 15th (which we had off for MLK). The driveway where I lived circled around the house, only half of which my roommate and I bothered to keep passable for a week or so (so we drove in and out of the same side for a while). We only got mail delivery once during the whole week, although we did get the paper most mornings, even if some of them were delivered a few days late.
The Aftermath
Some of the snow slowly melted between the 13th and the 17th as temperatures slowly rose. The 18th was quite warm, but there was still some significant snow on the ground. At 7pm on the 18th, there was still about 10" outside the house. At 6am the next morning, the 19th, it was ALL GONE!!! Temperatures rose during the night as a warm front passed over the area. The 6am temperature was 61 degrees, with a 60 degree dewpoint and a south wind of 25 knots. There had been some drizzle during the night, but mostly it was heavy fog and strong winds.
Later on during the 19th, a very strong line of thunderstorms passed through the state. Although the storms lasted only around an hour, they brought heavy rains atop of the rapidly melted snow. Needless to say, there were some serious flooding problems, both in DC and across the mid-Atlantic that weekend.
Twister
When the action movie "Twister" opened in May of 1996, a gang of atmospheric scientist types from here at Goddard went to see the movie during its opening night. Unfortunately, the movie was (IMHO) as bad as the Blizzard of '96 was good.
Credits
News Channel 4 NBC in Washington DC posted many of the graphics and downtown DC images. Intellicast posted the radar image, and NASA/GSFC posted the satellite image. Thanks to Greg and to Ellen for also taking pics of some of the action.