Christmas storm brings record level of snow to US city

A Christmas storm has dumped a record 1.3m (53in) of snow in Pennsylvania, and surrounding areas. The National Weather Service office in Cleveland said Monday's storm brought 86cm (34 in) of snow, an all-time daily snowfall record for Erie. Another 48cm (19 in) fell before dawn on Tuesday, bringing the total to 1.3m ( 53in), the greatest two-day total in commonwealth history. The previous record was 1.12m (44ins) that fell in Morgantown in West Virginia in March 1958.

The city of Erie issued a snow emergency, citing “dangerous and impassable” roads. It asked residents to stay off streets until the snow stops and roads can reopen. State police and the state department of transportation urged people to avoid travel, citing poor visibility and deteriorating conditions.

Tom Niziol, a winter weather expert at The Weather Channel, said the tally could approach 1.78m (70 in) by Wednesday night before the storm tapers off. The snow is part of what he called a “lake-effect snowstorm.”

Such storms occur when very cold air comes over the relatively warm waters of the Great Lakes, he said. Heat and moisture then rise into the cold air to produce snow; the direction of the wind determines where the snow falls.

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In this case, he said, the narrow snow band parked itself over

Erie, about 160km (100 miles) northeast of Cleveland. “It’s like sticking one end of a giant fire hose into Lake Erie and pointing the other end at Erie, Pennsylvania and leaving it there for 30 hours,” Mr Niziol said.

Although he has lived in Erie his entire life and recalls heavy snowfall when he was a child, Joe Sinnott, the city’s mayor, said he had never seen it come down quite like this. “We’re used to snow, don’t get me wrong,” Mr Sinnott (52), said. “But this amount, trying to deal with this, is very atypical.” Mr Sinnott spoke Tuesday evening by telephone as he monitored the dispatch of snowploughs from a municipal garage. He said crews had been working around the clock to clear main thoroughfares, but until about noon Tuesday, it had snowed so much that “every time we finish the main streets we have to circle back around and do them again.”–AP and NYT