Overview
2015 U.S. Northeastern Blizzard, also known as The Blizzard of 2015 or Winter Storm Juno, is a currently active heavy snowstorm moving across the Central and Eastern coast of the United States. Upon its landfall in late January 2015, the storm led to the suspension of thousands of flights and rail services across the country and declaration of snow emergency in at least six states, including travel bans at nighttime in New Jersey and New York City.
Background
On January 23rd, 2015, a rapid development of a low-pressure area was detected off the Pacific Northwest, which quickly made its way inward across the Canadian Prairies, then southeastward into the Upper Midwest, before it began approaching northeast towards New England in the typical fashion of a Nor’easter, a macro-scale storm that moves along the upper East Coast of the United States on a recurring basis. By January 25th, official blizzard warnings had been issued in several states along the East Coast, including New York, Massachusetts and New Jersey, while meteorologist projected a forecast of a potentially historic storm that could pile up to two to three feet (0.61 meter to 0.91 meter) in the New York City metropolitan area. On the early morning of January 26th, the storm began to sweep across the East Coast and continued throughout the day, covering a 250-mile area between New York City and Boston with up to 25 inches of snow. Later that same day, many roads and public transit services in New York and New England states were shut down in anticipation of life-threatening road conditions.
Notable Developments
Online, #Blizzardof2015 began trending on Twitter and Facebook, while thousands of photographs and videos of the massive snowfall emerged on photo-sharing sites like Instagram. In addition, many news sites ran real-time coverage of the latest developments as the storm made its way across the metropolitan areas off the East Coast. However, by January 27th, many in the social media began mocking the media hype over the storm which turned out to be less severe than the forecast.
