Marylanders Stunned By Unseasonable Snowfall
BALTIMORE (WJZ)-- An October snowstorm surprise blankets the Northeast, including here in Maryland.
Weijia Jiang gives us a look at how this October storm left its mark on Maryland.
Across the state, any signs of fall are completely trumped by signs of winter, even though it's nearly two months away. Many natives are shocked to see the unseasonable Saturday snowfall.
"It's like a winter wonderland all of a sudden," Justin Gaudenzi of Westminster said. "Things are coming out of nowhere."
The last time we saw snow this early was in 1979. The most accumulation in October fell in 1925.
"Never, never. I remember a lot of rain on Halloween but I don't remember snow at all," said Debbie Marion of Westminster.
Reporter: "Did you ever think you'd be clearing off snow in October?"
Charles Haines of Westminster: "No, I didn't to be honest with you. First time I can remember."
In Hereford, everything from signs, to cars, to streets were covered. Many residential yards became sheets of white.
Other places like Bel Air dealt with a nasty mix of rain and snow.
Highway crews treated roads as soon as flakes fell, working through the night to prevent freezing.
Transportation authorities say one of the biggest problems they've been dealing with is not just the roads, but what they're seeing drivers do on them.
"They're very wet and people are taking them way, way too fast," said Charlie Gischler of the State Highway Administration. "As a result, they're cutting off trucks and some of the trucks have jackknifed."
"We saw one accident coming up on 795, somebody swerved onto the median coming the opposite direction," Farzin Farzad, a driver in Hampstead said.
Western Maryland and Carroll County took the hardest hit. Other than precipitation, state emergency teams are monitoring high winds. With so much rainfall this year, the ground is saturated so trees could topple, especially because leaves are still on them.
BGE has already recorded thousands of outages linked to this storm.
There are more than 1,200 BGE customers still in the dark as a result of the storm. BGE warns there could be even more power outages if more trees fall on power lines.
