SAMANTHA ROSENTHAL
The east coast was recently hit with one of the largest winter storms seen in years. While the Internet exploded with a plethora of Jonas Brothers jokes about how people would not be “Burning Up” when the storm hit, people were told to prepare for the worst. Snowfall totals reached as high as 42 inches of snow at most.
New York was hit with 31.3 inches of snow while New Jersey had close to 33 inches. Although people prepared the best they could, the storm knocked out power and left thousands without electricity or heat to get through the storm.
Unfortunately, the storm did take some lives when it hit, leaving 50 people dead. Compared to the 102.8 million people who were affected by the storm, 50 is not a large number, although we do wish the best for their families in this time of need. Storm Jonas was a huge problem for flyers due to the 10,000 flight cancellations that took place over the two-day weekend. People were told to stay off the roads, but that did not stop them from having countless car accidents and traffic throughout the duration of the storm.
It is predicted that over $850 million worth of damage was caused by the storm, which tops any other amount of damage that a snow storm has ever resulted in. Especially with the amount of flooding that took place, this storm may yet reach a billion dollars needed to fix damage.
West Virginia was hit with the most snow, receiving 42 inches. Flurries were even seen in Florida, which is crazy to think about. Storm Jonas was ranked the 4th worst snowstorm that the Northeast has ever seen. Meteorologist Paul Kocin stated, “This storm ranks up there with the great blizzards of the past 100 years in terms of amount of snowfall, size of impacted areas and population affected.”
All that being said, the rest of the winter is looking to be more on the warmer side. There are no more storms predicted as of now to hit the tri-state area throughout the rest of the winter and not much snow is predicted either. Storm Jonas is now over and the weather can only get better from here.
The Thoma 