Chesapeake Bay Climate Impacts Summary and Outlook: Winter 2018-2019

MARISA Chesapeake Bay Climate Summary Winter 2018-2019 map

From December 2018 through the end of February 2019, extreme weather events caused disruptions, delays, and damages within the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. A December snowstorm dropped up to 15.2 inches of snow on western and central Virginia, while a January storm caused more than 250 flight cancellations at Washington D.C.'s three main airports. In late January, a polar vortex pushed into the northern Midwest, resulting in cold, windy weather across the Mid-Atlantic region.

Read more, and use the interactive maps of climate projections, in the latest MARISA Seasonal Climate Impacts Summary and Outlook.

Key Findings

Average temperature analysis indicates above-normal departures from normal temperature for most of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, including increases above 3°F in winter temperatures in portions of West Virginia and along the Chesapeake Bay.
Most of the region experienced increases in precipitation compared to historical normal precipitation. Western Virginia, southern and central Pennsylvania and western Maryland experienced between 150 and 200 percent of normal precipitation.
The region saw two different trends in snowfall: the northern two-thirds of the watershed saw snowfall at 50-75 percent of normal, while much of Virginia experienced increases in snowfall at 150-200 percent of normal or higher.

Read the Climate Summary

The MARISA Seasonal Climate Impacts Summary and Outlook is a seasonal series produced by NOAA’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments program that details seasonal weather and climate variability and change in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

MARISA is led by the non-profit RAND Corporation, in partnership with researchers in Penn State University’s Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, and the Environment, Energy, Sustainability and Health Institute at Johns Hopkins University, along with support from researchers in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University.

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