Delaware has a new daily snow depth record ... 11 years later

It has been an active 2021 as far as snowstorms go. This month, the National Center for Environmental Information determined that Delaware broke a record for daily snow depth measurement that was established 42 years ago.

Only the new record wasn't set by any of our recent modest storms. It happened 11 years ago during the “Snowmageddon” storm that pelted the region in early February 2010.

The center, an office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, released a report dated Feb. 12 stating that the new snow depth record for the state is now officially 28 inches, as measured at the Greenwood 2.9 SE station, which is a Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network volunteer site. That broke the previous record set in February 1979 in Bridgeville and matched in February 2003 in New Castle, Wilmington and Dover.

The official date for that new 28-inch measurement is Feb. 7, 2010.

Snow depth is different from snowfall. Snow depth determines the depth of the new and old snow remaining on the ground at observation time, according to the National Weather Service.

The report says a volunteer weather observer served from Sept. 1, 2009, through June 30, 2012. During that time, he submitted observations on 651 of a possible 1,033 days. During February 2010, the volunteer submitted observations on 22 of 28 possible days. The observer has since moved and was unavailable for comment on his Feb. 7, 2010, observation, the report says.

The official two-day snowfall total on Feb. 6 and 7 in 2010 was 29 inches, and a State Climate Extremes Committee – made up of weather officials from up and down the East Coast, including Delaware state climatologist Dan Leathers – voted unanimously, 5-0, to accept the new record based on snowfall data and reports from nearby stations.

"There is clear meteorological evidence to indicate the likelihood of a snow depth of this magnitude, and the records from surrounding stations adds to confidence in this observation," the report says.

The investigation into the 2010 snow data came last February and was prompted by Chris Stachelski, a regional observation program leader at the National Weather Service's Eastern Region Headquarters in Bohemia, New York.

Stachelski emailed the office of the state climatologist in Delaware and wrote that a new snow depth record may have been established in February 2010 for Delaware, but the data had never been examined or presented to the State Climate Extremes Committee.

The committee made its determination on a May 2020 call, but the report was not released until this month.

Called "Snowmageddon," the February 2010 storm system started in the Gulf of Mexico and powered up the Atlantic region. Between Feb. 5 and 6, it dropped more than 25 inches of snow on parts of Delaware. Days later, a storm system from the Midwest intensified over the Delmarva region and another foot of snow fell in some places.

Winter 2009-10 brought a record-setting snowfall total of 72.7 inches measured at the New Castle Airport station. 

Now, that winter has its place in daily snow depth history, even if it took 11 years to sort it out.

The full NCEI report is below.

Contact Jeff Neiburg at jneiburg@delawareonline.com. Follow him on Twitter @Jeff_Neiburg.