Last weekend, parts of the Northeast hadtheir first measurable snow of the season. But five years ago, a snowstorm smashed a pair of all-time records.
On Dec. 16, 2020, five years ago today, a snowstorm hammered the Northeast, leaving 6 to 12 inches of snow along the Interstate 95 corridor from Philadelphia to New York City and Boston.
Named Winter Storm Gail by The Weather Channel, it was certainly impactful to millions in the Northeast.
But its headline was the epic early-season dumping of feet of snow in the interior Northeast, from central Pennsylvania into central New York, Vermont and New Hampshire.
Binghamton, New York, picked up 40 inches of snow, most of it in just 24 hours from Dec. 16-17. That topped their all-time snowstorm record that had just been set over three years ago in mid-March 2017. It was more than double their average snowfall for the entire month of December (18.1 inches), and fell at the rate ofup to 5 inches per hour.
That dumping of snow buried vehicles andcollapsed the air-supported domeof the Greater Binghamton Sports Complex.
But they weren't alone.
Williamsport, Pennsylvania, also smashed its snowstorm record with 24.7 inches falling in 24 hours. That's about 70% of their seasonal average (35.4 inches) in 24 hours.
While Gail did have significant impacts to travel, this impressive snow brought some joy to both kids and kids at heart less than 10 days before Christmas during the COVID pandemic.
Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him onBluesky,X (formerly Twitter)andFacebook.
