On this day in 1938, a calendar-day record 6.8 inches of snow fell. Up to 1 to 2.5 feet of snow fell in the mountains. Precipitation began as rain and sleet before it switched to heavy snow.
The snow “covered the city with an almost impenetrable blanket, halted automobiles, disrupted traffic, and gave police, transportation and newspaper switchboards their heaviest task in years,” The Washington Post wrote on its front page.
The snow was accompanied by Arctic air which lingered for days. Highs were stuck in the 30s from Nov. 24 to 28 while lows dipped into the low 20s except, on Nov. 27, a record low of 14.
And on this day in 1950, a blockbuster East Coast storm, which killed at least 160 people, brought a calendar-day record 1.78 inches of precipitation to D.C. The Post wrote that it was “a day of freak weather” that began with flooding rains and tree-felling winds before plummeting temperatures and about 2 inches of snow (equivalent to about 0.2 inches of precipitation melted down). The temperature plunged from 58 to a record low of 18 degrees.
It was one of the worst East Coast storms on record and called the “storm of the century” (that moniker was later assigned to the March 1993 super storm). Winds gusted over 90 mph in New York City and runways at LaGuardia Field airport were underwater. Snowfall totals reached 30 to 60 inches in the Appalachians. Bitterly cold air plunged south in the storm’s wake, with lows reaching 3 degrees in Atlanta.
Here are other notables from this date:
- Average high: 55
- Average low: 39
- Record high: 79 (1973)
- Record low: 18 (1950)
- Record rainfall: 1.78 inches (1950)
- Record snowfall: 6.8 inches (1938)
