Did Boston Snow Break Records? Winter Snowfall Totals Could Exceed Previous High With Mid-Week Storms
Boston is just a few inches shy of breaking the city’s winter snowfall record of 107.6 inches after a light storm swept across parts of the U.S. Northeast over the weekend, dropping 2.1 inches of fresh powder on Boston by Sunday night and bringing the city’s snow total this winter to 104.1 inches, the National Weather Service announced Monday. Meteorologists expect more snow this week, which could secure a place in Boston's record books for the 2014-2015 snow season. The city’s current record was set in the winter of 1995-1996.
"We have come this far, we might as well break the record," William Babcock, a Massachusetts-area meteorologist with the National Weather Service, told the Associated Press. "We have a couple of storms to push us over the record. Once that is done we won't complain if we don't get any more snow.” The next snow is forecasted for Tuesday night and could bring between 1 and 3 inches, according to CBS Boston. Meteorologists expect another storm to come Wednesday night and continue into Thursday.
Icy conditions crippled transportation in some areas of the Northeast early Monday morning, leading to delays or cancellations for many government offices and schools from Pennsylvania to Maine and speed limit reductions along major Northeast highways. In Boston, city workers continued to plow streets Monday morning, according to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.
More snow could pose a problem for homes and buildings whose roofs have been strained under the weight of this year’s seemingly endless snow. Between Feb. 9 and Feb. 28, more than 180 roofs collapsed across Massachusetts, the Boston Globe reported, and state officials worry that this week’s storms could cause more cave-ins.
Forty-nine of 50 U.S. states kicked off March with new snowfall, with only Florida dodging such winter conditions. Roughly 8,000 U.S. flights were delayed and 2,400 canceled Sunday because of inclement weather. New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., alone reported more than 1,400 cancelations over the weekend.
Last month turned out to be relatively severe for the Northeast, with many upstate New York cities recording their coldest February temperatures ever. Syracuse averaged just 9 degrees Fahrenheit for the month, and Buffalo hovered around just 10.9 degrees, half a degree lower than its 1934 record, according to the National Monitor. Cities in Connecticut, Maine and Pennsylvania also saw record low cold in February.
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