The Blizzard of January 28th-29th, 2022
On January 28th, 2022, a strong coastal storm battered the area with strong winds and heavy snow before exiting later the following morning. An area of low pressure underwent explosive intensification off the coast. A name for this process of rapid intensification is bombogenesis, which is when a storm system’s barometric pressure drops 24 millibars (mb) or more in 24 hours. This storm did undergo bombogenesis and was thus deemed a bomb cyclone. In fact, the pressure dropped 20mb in just 10 hours! The storm also interacted with a fresh injection of arctic air. All of these factors opened the gateway for blizzard conditions to unfold across Delmarva.
An arctic cold front interacted with a strengthening low pressure system and produced widespread snow.
The storm dumped widespread snow across the region. Snow rates approached 1-2” per hour at times during the night of January 28th and early morning of January 29th. The highest totals were observed on the eastern tier of Delmarva closer to the coast where some locations reported up to a foot of snow, including Ocean City and Lewes. Snow accumulations of over a foot were observed toward coastal New Jersey.
A generalized contour map of the snowfall totals based on multiple snow reports.
Winds gusted upwards of 40-50 mph throughout the duration of storm. Gusts even exceeded 60 mph along the coastline at times, particularly during early morning on January 29th as arctic air continued to bleed into the region behind the departing storm. Morning lows the following day tumbled into the single digits!
The morning lows bottomed out into the single digits the morning after the storm.
Fortunately, coastal flooding was not a top concern here. This was due to a more northerly component to the winds in place rather than easterly. Also, the highest surge occurred outside of the highest astronomical tide cycles. Although, there was still widespread minor to near moderate coastal flooding along the Atlantic coastline, particularly during the morning of January 29th. Conditions began to calm down during the afternoon as the storm departed.
