East Coast blizzard makes top 5 worst Northeast snowstorms
HAGERSTOWN, Md. -- Last weekend's blizzard is officially the fourth most powerful snowstorm to hit the Northeast in more than 60 years.
That's according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which announced the storm's ranking on the Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale. The scale calculates inches of snowfall, geographic reach and population affected to see how each snowstorm measures up.
NOAA spokeswoman Maureen O'Leary says this storm affected 102.8 million people and covered about 434,000 square miles in 26 states.
National Weather Service meteorologist Paul Kocin says almost 24 million people saw more than 20 inches of snow as flakes fell from Louisiana to Maine.
Top honors still go to the so-called Storm of the Century in 1993. That storm dropped more than 30 inches in places from Mississippi to Maine.
Here are the top 5 storms, according to the Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale, which ranks storms according to inches of snowfall, geographic reach and population affected.
No. 1 - March 12-14, 1993: score 13.20, category 5, Extreme
No. 2 - January 6-8, 1996: score 11.78, category 5, Extreme
No. 3 - March 2-5, 1960: score 8.77, category 4, Crippling
No. 4 - January 22-24, 2016: score 7.66, category 4, Crippling
No. 5 - February 15-18, 2003: score 7.50, category 4, Crippli
At least 50 people died as a result of the most recent snowstorm that pounded the Eastern U.S. The deaths resulted from car accidents, carbon monoxide poisoning and heart attacks while shoveling snow.
And frustration continued to mount in recent days in parts of New York City and D.C. over snow cleanup response. One neighborhood in Queens waited days before they saw a snowplow.
"This is a little ridiculous. There is three feet of snow and nobody has come," said 22-year-old Caterina Cusenxa of Maspeth, who waited three days to dig her car out for work.
The roads and transportation weren't the only headache after this storm. It also shutdown the federal government, businesses and schools.
The storm also made a mess of Broadway box office receipts, with most shows reduced to six performances instead of eight when Saturday went dark.
The Broadway League said Tuesday that the grosses for the week ending Sunday were $15,977,958, a 39 percent drop from last week's haul of $26,239,268. Every show lost money.
Attendance also dropped to 174,717 last week from 257,867 the previous week.
Broadway shuttered its Saturday matinee and evening performances after subway, bus and railroad service were suspended.