Confused weather drops over 30 inches of snow on Memorial Day weekend

May 27, 2013 – NEW YORK – It’s a snowy Memorial Day weekend for parts of the U.S. On the aptly named Whiteface Mountain in upstate New York, there are at least 34 inches of snow on the ground. What’s that look like? Glad you asked: According to Weather Underground, a couple of other mountain peaks in Vermont reached 18 inches of snow, while some towns with higher elevations clocked in at about 7 inches of snowfall this weekend. To figure out how unusual the snowfall this weekend was, Weather Underground had to go back to 1816: Most famous of all cold and snowy late season events would have to be the infamous 1816 ‘Year without Summer’ when Tambora erupted (1815) and the snowfall in June that occurred in the eastern U.S. and Canada. Between June 6th and June 8th accumulating snow was observed as far south as the Catskills in New York (where one inch was reported) and highlands of central and northwest Pennsylvania. Snowflakes were seen at sea level as far south as ten miles north of tidewater on the Hudson River just above New York City. But, they note, snowfall in the north east this late in the season hasn’t been unheard of since then: the area tends to get some late season snowfall every 5-10 years. Just not nearly as much as this time. –Atlantic Wire