November 11th may seem early in the season, but it marks the largest snowstorm of the month on record for Washington DC and parts of Maryland. Imagine hearing a forecast of rain and snow showers, only to find the storm stalled and intensified. Accumulating snow in November itself is a rarity, but getting over a foot was just bizarre back in 1987. In fact the ultimate irony was that the day our nation honors veterans, the nation’s capital was hit the hardest.
Record Snowfall:
Snowfall maps are hard to come by for this time period, but there is one showing the bulls eye of snow around the Washington DC and central Maryland. Washington’s National Airport received 11.5″ of snow. It was the only event of the month and still stands as their largest snowstorm and snowiest November on record. In fact, it almost tied the annual expected snowfall there for any given season, 15.4″
On the east side in Prince George’s County, MD is where the heaviest snow fell. Up to 16 inches fell just outside ‘the district’.
To the north, Columbia Maryland got 12 inches, a solid a foot of snow, and was featured in the video clip below.
Slightly lower, but still impressive amounts fell over Annapolis and Baltimore in the six to 10 inch range.
Baltimore’s BWI set two records that day:
- Snow: 6 inches
- Low Temperature of 34F
Baltimore’s largest monthly snow was 8.4 inches on November 30, 1967
So consider the intensity of the snow, to accumulated that much on a warm ground, while temperatures remained above freezing.
Video Clip:
skyhawk2958 captured the warm day in Washington on November 10th, and put together clips from Fox 5’s newscast as they were amazed as well.
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