Gernby

I had quite a few "30 something" girlfriends between wives.

Elistan

It didn't snow because of colder temperatures - it never actually went below freezing the entire storm. It stayed around 32 or 33 degrees.

I was watching the water vapor satellite images, and it was obvious it snowed because a lot of warm, wet air came over from the Pacific and across Mexico, then hit the cooler temperatures aloft that had moved in prior. Like [b]BlackBearTX[/g] said, El Nino was a major factor in producing that moisture. The fact that it was snowing while so warm is the reason over 200,000 people lost power around here - the snow was so extremely wet and heavy, rather than the dry fluffy stuff you'd see at a UT ski resort, it was breaking tree branches like an ice storm would.

My impression is that the NE snow storms have a similar story - the storms were being powered by a large low pressure system off the coast, bringing in moisture onto land. Such storms would not normally form unless there's extra energy in the atmosphere than normal (think hurricane, but not quite as strong - they got only 50mph or so winds max.) A hurricane like storm is not normal in February.