Early Season Nor'easter
October 29-30 , 2011

An early season Nor'easter dumped heavy wet snow on across the area mainly to the south and east of the Capital District with snowfall amounts dropping off rapidly to the north and west. The storm tapped both Atlantic and subtropical moisture. Snowfall rates were as high as 2 to 4 inches an hour in mesoscale snowbands. Power outages occurred as trees and wires came down due to the heavy snow. The outages were the most widespread and prolonged in areas where leaves were still on the trees.

A colder air mass was brought into the region on Thursday, October 27th, as an area of low pressure moved eastward along a frontal boundary to our south. This weak system produced our first snowfall of season. Low pressure began to develop along the southeast coast Friday night. The low tracked along or just north of the Gulf Stream and rapidly deepened and intensified (cyclogenesis) as it moved northeastward on Saturday, October 29th. The storm passed just southeast of Cape Cod early Sunday morning, October 30th, then headed northeastward into the Canadian Maritimes during the day.

Across east central New York snowfall amounts ranged from as little 1 to 4 inches across the northern portion of the Capital District, to 5 to 10 inches in the Hudson Valley including the southern portion of the Capital District, with 10 to 16 inches in the eastern Catskills, and 12 inches to almost 2 feet across the Taconics. Snow ratios across the area varied with lower ratios in the Hudson River Valley and higher ratio across the higher terrain.

Across western New England snowfall amounts ranged from 1 to 1 1/2 feet in Litchfield County, in Berkshires from a foot to over 2 feet across the higher terrain of the northern Berkshires and across southern Vermont snowfall amounts ranged from 10 to 16 inches across Windham County and from 5 to 14 inches across Bennington County.