New Orleans breaks 1895 snowfall record during rare blizzard | Weather

New Orleans was cloaked in white Tuesday as whirling frozen flakes piled on the city, eventually tying a snowfall record set nearly 130 years ago.

In south-southeast New Orleans, a total of 10 inches had fallen by 6:21 p.m. Tuesday. The double-digit figure ties with a record set on Feb. 15, 1895, when 10 inches accumulated in Audubon Park due to a low-pressure system and rare frigid temperatures that created a winter storm, according to the National Weather Service.

Tuesday’s blizzard also shattered a record set on Christmas Day in 1963, when 2.7 inches of snow was recorded at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, NWS forecaster Christopher Bannan said. By early Tuesday afternoon, six inches were measured at the Kenner airport.

In the last 15 years, measurable amounts of snow have fallen on the city, but only rarely. A half an inch dusted the ground on Christmas Day in 2004. Eight years later, snowflakes gently fell again, with between two and three inches accumulating in Mandeville.

But Tuesday’s snowstorm, fueled by arctic cold and a moisture-laden low-pressure system from the Gulf of Mexico, was surreal for New Orleans, where residents could be snowed in until Thursday, according to city officials.

Streetcar lines were deserted. Miles of interstates and bridges were forced to shut down. Students stayed home. And in white dusted jackets, people skied along the icy neighborhood streets while others snowboarded down the levee.

It was, for the most part, a day of fun and levity, one officials say will precede a more difficult day of nearly freezing temperatures and increasingly icy conditions.