Official DC Snowfall Ranks Fourth With Asterisk

The blizzard of 2016 finally moved out of the area early Sunday morning after arriving on Friday and leaving behind a blanket of snow for the region.

Areas to the north and west of Washington were hardest hit, while areas to the south and east of the city received lesser amounts of snow.

According to totals from the National Weather Service, Sheperdstown, West Virginia, received more than three feet of snow. They recorded 40.5 inches of snow at 9:50 p.m. on Saturday.

In Virginia, Bluemont and Ashburn, in Loudoun County, recorded 36 inches early Sunday morning.

North Potomac, Maryland, in Montgomery County, had snow that measured 38.5 inches deep at 7 a.m. Sunday.

In Washington, the northwest parts of the city received a bit more than the rest. The National Zoo, home to the giant pandas, recorded 22.4 inches of snow.

At the airports, Washington Dulles International Airport, in Loudoun County, Virginia, recorded 29.3 inches, and Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, had 29.2 inches of snow.

The BWI measurement is a new record for them, while the Dulles total is fourth on their all-time list.

But the official number for Washington comes from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. However, their recorded snowfall of 17.8 inches has been called into question by Storm Team4 meteorologists, because areas near the airport recorded higher snowfall totals.

According to The Washington Post, the small team of weather observers at Reagan National Airport lost their snow-measuring device to the elements midway through the blizzard.

The measurement of 17.8 would put the Blizzard of 2016 in a tie for fourth with a February 2010 storm. The official snowfall record for Washington was a storm in January 1922, where 28 inches of snow fell.

Unofficially, the largest snowfall for D.C. was 36 inches in January 1772. Known as the Washington-Jefferson snowstorm, this total is considered unofficial because the only written record of it was found in the diaries of the two founding fathers.

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