Weather

The historic blizzard that blanketed the East coast of the United States has killed at least thirty people. The fatalities were as a result of car accidents, carbon monoxide poisoning and heart attacks suffered while shovelling snow. The snow storm, which set a new single-day snowfall record in Washington DC and New York City, hit a dozen states from Friday into early Sunday and affected around 85 million residents. The heaviest snowfall was recorded in Glengary, West Virginia, which had 42in.

24 hours after it started, the Blizzard of 2016, aka Snowmageddon, aka Snowtorious B.I.G., is over.

Here we are on Sunday and some 85 million Americans did indeed get “slammed” under an epic blizzard which has now moved beyond the realm of the “potential” and now encapsulates an actual, GDP-sapping winter extravaganza.

The last time a "epic" blizzard was supposed to slam New York City almost exactly one year ago, it ended up being an even more epic dud. This time, however, winter storm Jonas was no false alarm as millions of Americans across the Eastern Aeaboard woke up this morning to as much as two feet of snow, flooding, no electricity, strong winds, or all of the above.

On Wednesday we noted with some amusement that the “historic” winter blizzard that’s set to slam the east coast had been upgraded to a “potentially epic winter blockbuster.”

The best thing about “potentially epic winter blockbusters” is that they pave the way for “potentially epic” weather scapegoating from the BES, who last year learned that the American public (not to mention the market) is apparently fine accepting double-adjusted GDP data.

Yesterday some readers were offended when we dubbed the upcoming winter storm set to slam the Northeastern United States and impact up to 50 million people, in roughly 48 hours as "potentially historic" - a phrase created not by us, but by the WaPo's meteorologists.