On this day in 2006, 6 to 20-plus inches of snow fell in the Washington region. Where I lived in Northwest Washington, near the Van Ness Metro station, I measured about 11 inches after heavy snow accompanied by lightning and thunder. Reagan National Airport received 8.8 inches (the storm spanned two days, Saturday night into Sunday morning, Feb. 11 and 12).
“The first big-league storm of an otherwise temperate winter dumped heavy, wet snow on metropolitan Washington,” The Washington Post reported. “It was the kind of snow that was great for making snowballs and for sledding — and for sending tree limbs crashing into power lines.”
“The storm not only lived up to expectations, but in many areas exceeded them by the time it exited,” wrote Dan Stillman on CapitalWeather.com, the independent website that was folded into The Post as the Capital Weather Gang two years later. The storm brought 26.9 inches to New York City, second most on record.
Here are other notables for the day:
- Average high: 48
- Average low: 31
- Record high: 74 (1999)
- Record low: 4 (1899)
- Record precipitation: 1.37 inches (1985)
- Record snowfall: 7.0 inches (1899)
