Winter 2012-13: Named Storms from 'A' to 'Z' (and 'A' Again)

Winter Storm Athena

Our first named winter storm of the season was Athena, which brought snow to parts of Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and New England less than two weeks after Superstorm Sandy ravaged the region with devastating coastal flooding and power outages.

Before those power outages could be resolved, Athena aggravated the situation with pockets of heavy wet snow. The top total was 13.5 inches in Monroe and Clintonville, Conn. In New Jersey, Allaire picked up a foot. New York City itself received 4.7 inches of snow officially in Central Park.

STORM PAGE: Winter Storm Athena

Winter Storm Brutus

November 8 - 11, 2012

Brutus brought snow from the Sierra to the Northern Rockies, but its greatest impact was a large swath of snow across Northern Plains along with blizzard conditions.

Brutus set several records for snowfall so early in the season, including two-day snowfall that ranked among the top five storms on record for several sites including Bozeman and Great Falls, Mont.

STORM PAGE: Winter Storm Brutus

Winter Storm Caesar

December 8 - 10, 2012

Caesar was another Northern Plains/Upper Midwest blizzard. St. Cloud, Minn., had its snowiest December day on record with 11 inches of snow on Dec. 9; the Twin Cities picked up 10.5 inches, the fourth-snowiest December day on record there.

The storm also ended a record streak of 279 days without measurable snow in Des Moines, Iowa.

STORM PAGE: Winter Storm Caesar

Winter Storm Draco

December 17 - 21, 2012

Draco was a two-part storm that first brought snow and very high winds to the Cascades and Rockies on Dec. 17-18, followed by a stripe of heavy snow across the Plains, Upper Midwest and Great Lakes Dec. 19-21.

Wind gusts topped 100 miles per hour over the higher terrain of Oregon and Washington, where over 20 inches of snow fell in the mountains.

Over a foot of snow fell in Des Moines, while Omaha reported thundersnow. Massive snowfall buried southern Wisconsin, with over 20 inches in Beaver Dam; Madison reported 13.3 inches on Dec. 20, its second-snowiest calendar day in history and part of its 15.2-inch storm total.

STORM PAGE: Winter Storm Draco

Winter Storm Euclid

December 23 - 28, 2012

This long-tracking winter storm stretched from the Sierra Nevada through the south-central states to New England.

It was the second White Christmas in a row for Amarillo, Texas (a feat unmatched since 1894-95), and the first accumulating Christmas snow in Dallas-Fort Worth since 1975.

It was the snowiest Christmas on record in Little Rock, Ark. (9 inches); heavy snow and ice accumulations caused widespread power outages in Arkansas that lasted for days.

Snow totals exceeded a foot from parts of Illinois and Indiana through the interior Northeast, and drifts reached four feet in Indiana.

STORM PAGE: Winter Storm Euclid

Winter Storm Freyr

December 28 - 30, 2012

Freyr brought a swath of post-Christmas snow from Missouri to Maine.

Generally 4 to 6 inches fell from eastern Missouri through the Ohio Valley, with somewhat higher totals in the Northeast. Like Athena, Freyr dumped some small pockets of much heavier snow including 20 inches in East Machias, Maine, and 13 inches in Burrillville, R.I.

STORM PAGE: Winter Storm Freyr

Winter Storm Gandolf

January 10 - 12, 2013

Gandolf was similar to Brutus in its geographical domain, bringing blizzard conditions to Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota.

This was a particularly nasty storm for the Salt Lake City area, where 1 to 2 feet of snow fell; up to 45 inches fell in the Wasatch Range just to the east.

STORM PAGE: Winter Storm Gandolf

Winter Storm Helen

January 15 - 16, 2013

Helen was part of a one-two punch for parts of the South.

Sleet and snow, accompanied by lightning, made the Jan. 15 morning commute a mess for Dallas-Fort Worth. Freezing rain accumulated in parts of Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.

Helen finished with some light to moderate snow (up to 5 inches) in parts of the Northeast.

STORM PAGE: Winter Storm Helen

Winter Storm Iago

January 17 - 18, 2013

Iago was the second winter storm in a row for parts of the Deep South. It brought up to 6 inches of snow to Mississippi and 1 to 5 inches in northern Alabama, causing travel slowdowns; the snow quickly melted, however.

Up to a foot of snow fell in the Appalachians of eastern Kentucky and western Virginia, with lighter snows into Raleigh, N.C., and Richmond, Va.

STORM PAGE: Winter Storm Iago

Winter Storm Jove

January 21 - 22, 2013

Jove was forecast to have a narrow but very intense snowband near the New England coast. However, that band formed just offshore, and the predicted impacts for the Boston-Portland corridor failed to materialize.

However, light snow from the disturbance that was later named Jove did cause a fatal 86-vehicle pile-up in the Cincinnati area on Jan. 21.

STORM PAGE: Winter Storm Jove

Winter Storm Khan

January 25 - 26, 2013

Khan brought a stripe of light to moderate snow from Wisconsin through West Virginia.

Farther south, significant ice accumulations occurred from Kentucky and Tennessee through far northern Georgia to the Carolinas, causing power outages and traffic accidents.

STORM PAGE: Winter Storm Khan

Winter Storm Luna

January 27 - 28, 2013

Luna was more of an ice storm than a snowstorm, though parts of Michigan saw up to 11 inches of the white stuff.

Ice accumulation of 1/4 to 1/2 inch struck northeast Iowa, northwest Illinois, and southeast Minnesota. Over 200 flights were cancelled at Chicago's O'Hare Airport on Sunday, Jan. 27, and a similar number of flights were cancelled at Newark and LaGuardia airports in the New York area the next day.

STORM PAGE: Winter Storm Luna

Winter Storm Magnus

January 29 - 30, 2013

Magnus was a moderate January snowstorm for the Plains and Midwest, with a stripe of snow from Nebraska to Michigan.

It did cause major rush-hour headaches in the Des Moines area on Jan. 30, when over 6 inches of snow fell there. Totals reached 14 inches at Snyder Lake, Mich.

The snow from Magnus was greatly overshadowed by a severe weather outbreak that hit the Southeast in association with the same storm system, including a deadly tornado that struck Bartow and Gordon counties including Adairsville, Ga., on Jan. 30.

STORM PAGE: Winter Storm Magnus

Winter Storm Nemo

February 8 - 10, 2013

Barring an early-spring blockbuster, Nemo will assuredly go down as the most potent winter storm of the 2012-13, despite affecting a much smaller geographical area than some of its fellow storms.

Snow fell at extreme rates of 5 to 6 inches per hour in parts of Connecticut, piling up to a top total of 40 inches at Hamden, potentially breaking an all-time statewide 24-hour snowfall record pending further scientific review.

Portland, Maine, had its greatest snowstorm of record with 31.9 inches. Winds gusted over hurricane force at many locations, including Boston; the storm was so severe that almost every anemometer in southern New England eventually succumbed to technical glitches or outright outages. 

Over 500,000 customers lost power; motorists on the Long Island Expressway were stranded for hours as over 30 inches of snow piled up on central and eastern parts of the island.

Significant coastal flooding battered the coast of eastern Massachusetts, including Nantucket Island, as well as parts of the New Jersey shore.

STORM PAGE: Winter Storm Nemo

Winter Storm Orko

February 10 - 11, 2013

Orko was another in a series of blizzards that pummeled the Northern Plains this winter. At one point over 800 miles of Interstate highway were closed in the Dakotas and Minnesota, consisting of long stretches of I-90, I-94, and I-29.

Upper Midwest blizzards are usually known more for extreme wind speeds than for extreme amounts of snow, but not this time -- over 20 inches of new snow fell in parts of North Dakota and Minnesota, and over a foot in parts of South Dakota.

STORM PAGE: Winter Storm Orko

Winter Storm Plato

Plato brought up to 6 inches of snow to western parts of Virginia and North Carolina on Feb. 18, and even South Carolina got in on some 1-to-5-inch amounts. Flurries fell as far south as Charleston, S.C.

Plato then "bombed" off the East Coast, meaning its pressure dropped very rapidly -- in this case to a very impressive 954 millibars.

However, with the track farther offshore than Nemo, its effects on the Northeast were much more modest -- generally 1 to 6 inches of snow in southern New England, with some reports of 8 to 12 inches in Maine.

STORM PAGE: Winter Storm Plato

Winter Storm Q

February 19 - 24, 2013

"Q" was one of the longer-lived winter storms of the season, starting with snow in the mountains of California on Feb. 19, disrupting road travel over mountain passes in both southern and northern California.

Play was suspended at the Accenture Match Play Championship golf tournament in Tucson on Feb. 20 as snow fell there.

"Q" was the second-biggest snowstorm on record for Wichita, Kan., where 14.2 inches fell Feb. 20-21. Heavy snow also caked parts of Nebraska, western Iowa, and western Missouri.

"Q" spawned a secondary coastal low that brought over a foot of snow to coastal parts of New Hampshire and Maine on Feb. 23-24.

STORM PAGE: Winter Storm Q

Winter Storm Rocky

February 24 - 26, 2013

Rocky was the second major winter storm in a row for the central and southern Plains region.

The snow reached farther south with Rocky than with "Q", and brought Amarillo its third-heaviest snowstorm of record (19.1 inches) along with 75-mph wind gusts that paralyzed the Texas Panhandle with widespread blizzard conditions and drifts of up to 7 feet.

Coming on the heels of "Q", Rocky's 7 inches of snow pushed Wichita to its snowiest month on record, a 21.2-inch total that eclipsed a record coincidentally set exactly 100 years earlier in February 1913.

Rocky went on to bring very heavy snow to Wisconsin and extreme northern Illinois, and yet another round of double-digit snow to northern New England.

STORM PAGE: Winter Storm Rocky

Winter Storm Saturn

March 3 - 10, 2013

The Weather Channel named Winter Storm Saturn on March 2, correctly anticipating the arrival of snow in the central and northern Rockies on March 3.

Snow then spread across the Midwest, including 9.2 inches in Chicago, though roads mostly remained wet and traffic delays were minimal.

Heavy wet snow knocked out power for tens of thousands in Virginia and West Virginia, with over 20 inches reported in the higher elevations; but warm temperatures limited accumulations to less than an inch in Washington, D.C., where it quickly melted.

Saturn intensified and slowly sideswiped New England with heavy snow and relentless pounding surf, leading to major coastal flooding and beach erosion yet again in eastern Massachusetts. Snowfall totals exceeded 20 inches across much of central and eastern Massachusetts.

STORM PAGE: Winter Storm Saturn

Winter Storm Triton

March 8 - 11, 2013

Triton spread mountain snows from southern California through the Great Basin and central Rockies, bringing locally over two feet to some of the higher terrain in Colorado.

Triton then spread somewhat disorganized but locally heavy bands of snow across the Central Plains into the Upper Midwest. Omaha picked up 9 inches; local double-digit totals stretched from Nebraska to Upper Michigan.

STORM PAGE: Winter Storm Triton

Winter Storm Ukko

March 17 - 20, 2013

The Weather Channel named Winter Storm Ukko on Sunday, March 17. By the next morning, a long stretch of I-94 in northwest Minnesota was closed as blizzard conditions enveloped the eastern Dakotas and western Minnesota; rush hour was snarled in the Twin Cities.

Ukko brought a glace of ice to parts of Ohio and Pennsylvania, and widespread snows from Pennsylvania and New York into New England. Parts of northern New England saw over a foot of snow on March 19-20.

Heavy lake-effect snows broke out across the Great Lakes region in the cold air mass behind the storm.

STORM PAGE: Winter Storm Ukko

Winter Storm Virgil

March 22 - 25, 2013

The Weather Channel named Winter Storm Virgil on Friday, March 22.

Winter Storm Virgil dumped a long swath of snow roughly along the length of the I-70 corridor from Utah east to Maryland, along with parts of some adjacent states. The storm moved out to sea and away from the Mid-Atlantic on the evening of Monday, March 25.

Denver and St. Louis both saw around a foot of snow. Springfield, Ill. was buried under 18.5 inches of snow, of which 17 inches fell March 24, setting an all-time snowfall record for any calendar day in Illinois's capital city.

Indianapolis recorded its biggest snowstorm of the season with 9.1 inches.

In the Mid-Atlantic, Washington, D.C. picked up 1.4 inches, which was their biggest snowstorm of the season. Baltimore saw 3.2 inches and Philadelphia recorded 1.1 inches.

STORM PAGE: Winter Storm Virgil

Winter Storm Walda

April 7 - 12, 2013

The Weather Channel named Winter Storm Walda on Sunday, April 7.

Walda brought snow and ice primarily to a swath from the central Rockies to the Upper Midwest, but an unusually strong southward plunge of cold air behind Walda brought freezing rain as far south as Texas, and freakish severe thunderstorms with large hail in Nebraska where temperatures were well below freezing.

(MORE: 10 Strangest Things About Walda)

Walda's worst weather, however, was reserved for South Dakota's two largest cities. On the western side of the state, Rapid City Regional Airport picked up 28.2 inches of snow, the biggest snowstorm on record at the airport location.

Across the state, Sioux Falls was hit by a round of heavy freezing rain on Tuesday, April 9, knocking out power to tens of thousands of customers in the city of 150,000 residents.

STORM PAGE: Winter Storm Walda

Winter Storm Xerxes

April 13 - 15, 2013

The Weather Channel named Winter Storm Xerxes on Saturday, April 13.

This late-season storm brought yet another round of unwelcome snow to the Upper Midwest, particularly North Dakota and northeastern South Dakota. Interstate 94 was closed across nearly all of North Dakota at one point during the storm.

Parts of Bismarck, N.D., picked up nearly two feet of snow. The official total of 17.3 inches there on April 14 alone made that day the snowiest calendar day in the history of North Dakota's capital.

STORM PAGE: Winter Storm Xerxes

Winter Storm Yogi

April 15 - 19, 2013

The Weather Channel named Winter Storm Yogi on Monday, April 15.

In some respects, Yogi was a case of "deja vu all over again" as its snowy side followed a swath similar to that of Winter Storm Walda a week earlier.

Snow totals exceeded two feet in parts of Wyoming and northern Colorado, and amounts of 20 inches or more also piled up in parts of northeast Minnesota and northern Wisconsin. Duluth racked up a three-day total of 17.7 inches.

STORM PAGE: Winter Storm Yogi

Winter Storm Zeus

April 22 - 23, 2013

The Weather Channel named Winter Storm Zeus on Monday, April 22.

Once again, the northern and central Rockies and the Upper Midwest were blanketed by accumulating snow. The snow pushed downtown Rapid City, S.D., and Duluth, Minn., to their snowiest months (not just April, but any month) on record.

Zeus petered out over Kansas on April 23 with some light snow across northern parts of the Sunflower State, but not before bringing at least 9.2 inches of snow to Goodland, Kan., the heaviest snowfall ever recorded so late in the season there.

STORM PAGE: Winter Storm Zeus

By this point we were out of storm names and didn't figure we'd need another one, but May would force us to improvise.

Winter Storm Achilles

April 30 - May 4, 2013

Faced with the prospects for an exceptionally rare May snowstorm for the Central Plains and Upper Midwest, The Weather Channel returned to the beginning of the alphabet and named Winter Storm Achilles on Tuesday, April 30.

Having gone through the entire planned alphabetical list of names, we turned to the students at Bozeman (Mont.) High School's Latin class and their proposed list of storm names.

Achilles dumped over 20 inches of snow on the mountains of Colorado and Wyoming, where late-April and early-May snowstorms are nothing unusual.

But then, as predicted by computer models but defying climatological odds, the storm went on to bring snow to a wide swath of the Plains and Upper Midwest. Preliminary data indicates statewide snowfall records for the month of May may have been broken in Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota, all of which saw localized snowfall of more than 10 inches. 

It was the first measurable May snow ever recorded in Arkansas, and the first May flakes ever seen in Tulsa, Okla.

STORM PAGE: Winter Storm Achilles