Powdery? Odd, no? I’d expect wet, sticky snow coming off the water like that.
They said because the air is so cold the snow would be powdery.
It all depends on how much cold air is in place or the timing of the storm as in how much warmer coastal air the storm wraps in.
In some Nor'easters I've been in my +50 years of living in the Mid-Atlantic, sometimes the snow has been very wet and heavy, even with periodic sleet and freezing rain bands like the blizzard of '93 in Baltimore. We still got a lot of snow but it was wet and heavy, it stuck heavily to the trees and roofs and combined with the very high, near hurricane force winds, caused a lot of power outages, trees coming down, roof collapses...
In others like the blizzards of 83 and 96 and 2003, it was a very heavy but fine and powdery snow.
This storm here in Central PA, it was all snow and a very dry and powdery snow. No significant power losses which is a good thing but lots of drifting.
PenDot is saying this morning that they are still working on clearing the major roadways and to not expect secondary roads to be anywhere near cleared until Tuesday.
Where I am, just south and east of York City, our "official" snow fall total is 30.5 inches.
Looking out my apartment window, some cars are completely covered in snow up to their roof tops or even higher in some of the drifts.
The snow removal team at my apartment complex consists of a lone maintenance guy in a small 4x4 pickup truck with a small snow plow attachment.
I watched yesterday afternoon as he was trying to plow and constantly getting stuck. He managed to finally clear a small narrow path but also plowed all the cars in. The few people who I saw trying to shovel out their cars yesterday afternoon, no one seemed to get out and most gave up and since there's not really anywhere to put the snow except for back in the semi-plowed area or next to a neighbors' car, it's going to take days for most of us to get out.
The maintenance guy is back at it this morning, bless his heart, but is not making much progress.
And they haven't even started on the sidewalks. There is a drift in front of the sidewalk leading to my building that looks to be at least 4 feet.