By Josh Chang
A strong and slow-moving nor’easter dumped massive quantities of snow across the tri-state area early this week, including just over 21 inches in Irvington. It was one of the village’s largest totals in the past half-century. Schools were completely closed Monday and all virtual Tuesday as a result.
The storm began its life on January 24th over the Bering Sea, some 5,000 miles from Irvington. A weak low pressure system split off from a larger Pacific storm and quickly strengthened as it moved east over the Aleutian Islands.
By January 27th, the storm had reached the West Coast of the United States, which it battered with rain and snow for days. Becoming what meteorologists call an “atmospheric river,” the storm triggered flash-flooding and mudslides across California. Much of the Sierra Nevada received feet of snow, including up to ten on some peaks.
The storm exited California on the Friday the 29th and passed over the Southwest, Southern Plains, and Midwest, dropping about a foot of snow in Chicago, the city’s largest snowstorm in five years.
Finally, on Sunday, the storm moved off the East Coast, restrengthened into a powerful nor’easter, and stalled out for a couple of days. The nor’easter left a wide swath of snow from Virginia to Maine, with New York City and the surrounding area being hit the hardest. Some spots in northern New Jersey and northeast Pennsylvania measured an impressive 30 inches of snow.
By the time the storm exited New England on Wednesday, it had impacted nearly every state in the United States in some way or another. For many, it was a storm to remember.
