One of the strangest weather events Mississippi has seen in recent memory happened earlier this week when snow blanketed the state’s coastal counties and their beaches. But did the “snowpocalypse” result in records being broken? Let’s sled into the topic.
While there’s no doubt Tuesday’s snowfall in the southern six counties of Hancock, Harrison, Jackson, Pearl River, Stone, and George was rare, the National Weather Service has not confidently confirmed that it was the largest amount of snow the region has ever seen.
The product of Winter Storm Enzo dumped just over 10 inches at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, tying the Louisiana city’s record set in 1895. 77 miles to the east and across the state line, the Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport also saw its grounds covered in the white stuff, causing delayed flights. The only problem when tracking what fell at the Mississippi Gulf Coast airport is that the NWS does not currently have an official snow recorder on site, considering how infrequent snow is along the shoreline.
With a bit of internet sleuthing and speaking with residents, it became apparent that even without NWS at this point being able to quantitatively compare this week’s snowstorm to those of the past, it has easily been over a half-century since a weather event even close to this had been experienced in South Mississippi.
“It’s the craziest snowpocalypse I’ve ever lived,” one Gulfport resident said while a Pass Christian resident added, “This hasn’t happened since I’ve been alive.”
According to what records NWS does have on its books, previous snowfall amounts have been tracked at 7 inches in December 1963, 6.3 inches in February 1895, and 2 inches in March 1993. Before Tuesday’s instance, the last time the agency had tracked snow in Gulfport was in 2014 when about 0.2 inches fell.
If those numbers do justice in encapsulating the last 130 years, it can be asserted that the latest instance of snow along the Gulf Coast was, in fact, record-breaking. Residents and local meteorologists reported 9 inches in Ocean Springs, 8.5 inches in St. Martin, over 7 inches in Gulfport, and up to 7 inches in Biloxi.
Also worth noting is that the NOAA has a model it uses to show snowfall totals, although it’s not a precise measurement but rather an estimation. According to it, Biloxi saw 8 inches while Bay St. Louis and Pascagoula each saw about or over 8.5 inches.
While the NWS will more than likely release a full report soon of information it has compiled over the past few days, South Mississippi has begun to thaw out and is reopening schools and businesses that were forced to shut down due to the frigid conditions.
