A2: Weather

On his WunderBlog, Jeff Masters of the Ann Arbor-based Weather Underground writes about this week’s snowstorms and some of the records they’ve set: “I’ve commented several times this week that there is no precedent in the historical record, going back to the late 1800s, to the incredible snow blitz the Mid-Atlantic has endured. Well, it turns out there is a comparable winter, at least for Philadelphia, if one goes back in time nearly 300 years. According to Chris Burt, author of the excellent book, Extreme Weather, in 1717 four storms between February 27 and March 9 dropped a total of 3-5 feet of snow from Philadelphia to Boston. Snow drifts as much as 25′ deep occurred in the Boston area. An account of the 1717 event was one of the first journal entries of the Massachusetts Historical Society by Cotton Mather.” [Source]