Wunderground.com - 3/8/13, Dr. Jeff Masters
It's not often that a Nor'easter centered more than 600 miles out to sea brings heavy snow and and major coastal flooding to New England, but Winter Storm Saturn is a one-of-a-kind. The massive storm, which was centered about 600 miles east-southeast of New York City at 7 am EST, sprawls out over a huge area of ocean more than 1000 miles across. While the central pressure of 988 mb is not exceptionally low for a Nor'easter, the sheer size of the storm is allowing Saturn to pile up a formidable storm surge, which hammered the coast of Eastern Massachusetts during the Friday morning high tide cycle, causing severe erosion, widespread street flooding, and damage to roads and houses.
Snowfall amounts as high as 18" have fallen in Massachusetts (in West Walpole), and a band of moderate snow has set up along an arc from New York City to Boston. The big storm has dumped 6+" of snow on seventeen states this week, from North Dakota to Massachusetts. The deepest snows fell in the Appalachian Mountains of western Virginia and eastern West Virginia, where a number of locations received over twenty inches. The top snow-getter was Franklin, West Virginia, with 24".
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