Wednesday, January 28, 2015

The Blizzard of '15

January 28, 2015 — The Blizzard of 2015 that walloped New England didn't quite live up to the media hype, but nonetheless a couple of significant records were set. Boston got 25.6 inches of snow, a record for that city for the month of January. The 34.5 inches that buried Worcester for them was an all-time record for any month.

There was some flooding and storm damage in southeastern Massachusetts and on Cape Cod. A seawall was breached in Marshfield. All driving, except for emergency vehicles and other essential personnel, was banned in Massachusetts for 24 hours. The electric company deliberately shut off power to the town of Scituate for 24 hours to lessen the danger of fire caused by flooding of electric wiring in basements which caused the loss of several homes in the blizzard of 2013.

It was a long-duration storm, lasting about 36 hours. My hometown got just under two feet of snow. All this occurred after a mostly snow-free December and January. In fact, it was the first significant storm since the day before Thanksgiving, back in November.