The National Weather Service on Monday posted what it said were “final determinations” of the weekend storm that battered Massachusetts and said a number of communities endured blizzard conditions for hours on end Saturday.
The findings were posted at 1:50 p.m. to the weather service’s website under the headline “BLIZZARD OF 2022 - FINAL DETERMINATIONS.”
Blizzard conditions, defined as falling or blowing snow reducing visibility to a quarter-mile when wind gusts reach 35 miles per hour or more, persisted for more than three hours Saturday in locales including Boston, Worcester, Beverly, Lawrence, Hyannis, Marshfield, and Martha’s Vineyard, forecasters said.
Advertisement
“Snowfall totals of 12 to 24 inches were common across those regions, with local amounts [of] up to 30 inches reported south of Boston,” the weather service said.
Forecasters said Boston saw blizzard conditions “continuously” Saturday from 8:15 a.m. to 3:54 p.m.
In Worcester, the weather service added, “it was continuous for 8 hours [and] 16 minutes from 7:49 AM to 4:05 PM.” Beverly saw a combined six hours and nine minutes of blizzard weather, forecasters said, while Lawrence had it for a total of five hours and 14 minutes.
Hyannis had at least six hours and 33 minutes of blizzard conditions, Marshfield had a combined 12 hours, and Martha’s Vineyard saw a whopping nine hours and 17 minutes of an uninterrupted blizzard, from 7:43 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, per the weather service.
The weekend storm was also a nor’easter. Nor’easters are storms that typically include northeasterly winds that move up the East Coast. The storms are most frequent and strongest between September and April, the weather service says.
Nor’easters are far more common than blizzards, and sometimes bring heavy rains instead of snow. The downpours and power outages of October 2021 were caused by a nor’easter, as was the memorable snowstorm of December 2020.
Advertisement
Some other notable nor’easters to strike New England have been the Great White Blizzard of 1888, which dumped 50 inches of snow on parts of Massachusetts; the infamous Blizzard of ′78, which brought two feet of snow to the area and didn’t stop for 33 hours; and the “Snowmageddon” storms that pummeled Boston in January and February 2015, the National Weather Service said.
Material from prior Globe stories was used in this report.
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com.