January 2018 North American blizzard in the context of Tallahassee, Florida

⭐ Core Definition: January 2018 North American blizzard

The January 2018 North American blizzard caused widespread severe disruption and blizzard conditions across much of the East Coasts of the United States and Canada in early January 2018. The storm dropped up to 2 feet (24 in; 61 cm) of snow in the Mid-Atlantic states, New England, and Atlantic Canada, while areas as far south as southern Georgia and far northern Florida had brief wintry precipitation, with 0.1 inches (2.5 mm) of snow measured officially in Tallahassee, Florida. The storm originated on January 3 as an area of low pressure off the coast of the Southeast. Moving swiftly to the northeast, the storm explosively deepened while moving parallel to the Eastern Seaboard, causing significant snowfall accumulations. The storm received various unofficial names, such as Winter Storm Grayson, Blizzard of 2018 and Storm Brody. The storm was also dubbed a "historic bomb cyclone".

On January 3, blizzard warnings were issued for a large swath of the coast, ranging from Norfolk, Virginia all the way up to Maine. Several states, including North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts declared states of emergency due to the powerful storm. Hundreds of flights were canceled ahead of the blizzard. Overall, 22 people were confirmed to have been killed due to the storm, and at least 300,000 residents in the United States lost power in total.

↓ Menu

January 2018 North American blizzard in the context of Nor'easter

A nor'easter (also northeaster; see below) is a large-scale extratropical cyclone in the western North Atlantic Ocean. The name derives from the direction of the winds that blow from the northeast. Typically, such storms originate as a low-pressure area that forms within 100 miles (160 km) of the shore between North Carolina and Massachusetts. The precipitation pattern is similar to that of other extratropical storms, although nor'easters are usually accompanied by heavy rain or snow, and can cause severe coastal flooding, coastal erosion, hurricane-force winds, or blizzard conditions. They tend to develop most often and most powerfully between the months of November and March, because of the difference in temperature between the cold polar air mass coming down from central Canada and the warm ocean waters off the upper East Coast. The susceptible regions—the upper north Atlantic coast of the United States and the Atlantic Provinces of Canada—are generally impacted by nor'easters a few times each winter.

View the full Wikipedia page for Nor'easter

↑ Return to Menu